NEW AMSTERDAM
AND ITS PEOPLE
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library
iEx ICtbrtH
SEYMOUR DURST
When you leave, please leave this book
Because it has been said
"Ever'thing comes t' him who waits
Except a loaned book."
1
Digitized by
the Internet Archive
in 2013
http://archive.org/details/newamsterdamitspOOinne_0
NEW AMSTERDAM
AND ITS PEOPLE
NEW AMSTERDAM
AND
ITS PEOPLE
Studies, Social and Topographical, of the Town
under Dutch and Early English Rule
BY
J. H. INNES
WITH MAPS, PLANS, VIEWS, ETC.
Maar gij, 6 wel, en alder-heerlijkst-Land,
Weest dankbaar, an des milden Gevers hand.
Die u als in een Lust-hof heeft geplant.
Die gij u kind'ren
Meugt laten tot een Eeuwig-eygendom,
Tot dat het Zaad der Vrouwe wederom
Verschijn : tot ons verlossing : Wellekom!
Wie zal 't hem hind'ren?
Jacob Steendam
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S
1902
SONS
r
Copyright, IQ02,
By Charles Scribner's Sons
Published, October, 1902
UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
PREFACE
IT is perhaps unfortunate, in some respects, that Washing-
ton Irving chose to employ his great talents in writing
the amusing " Knickerbocker History " of New York. A
burlesque history of New York does not seem to be called
for per se, any more than a burlesque history of the Plymouth
Colony, and the presentation of a fictitious type of the colo-
nists of the former is calculated to work the same sort of
inconveniences as would the selection, for example, of Colonel
Pride or of Praise-God Barebones as a type of the latter.
Readers of such works are supposed, it is true, to bear in
mind the fact that they are considering the humorous descrip-
tions of non-existent characters ; but when for any reason
the work becomes almost a classic, as it were, of the literature
of the country, the type therein portrayed passes insensibly
in the popular mind into something like the embodiment of
truth.
The superficial American who travels in England, or the
superficial Englishman who travels in America, when he
writes a book about his travels, is apt to set forth the few
people he has chanced to meet as representatives of national
types of character. Both of these worthies are even more
prone to do the same thing when they travel in a foreign
country with the tongue of which they are of necessity but
imperfectly acquainted, but in such cases their performances
usually fall beneath the dignity of criticism.
No community, however, can be rightly judged in this
manner, for in each one are to be found traits of character
almost as diverse and distinct as are the individuals who
compose it. New York is no exception to this rule. Within
vi
PREFACE
the period of the first thirty or forty years of the colonization
of New Amsterdam there are to be met with, in the town,
representatives of every country of Europe west of the line of
the Slavonic peoples. The Dutch, of course, greatly predom-
inated, but their characteristics also are exceedingly varied.
In the public and private records of the colony there are to be
found traits of profound and of thoughtless men, men crafty
and men open-minded, mild or haughty, religious or profane,
moral or immoral, learned or ignorant, freedom-loving or
despotic, small-minded men in office, puffed up with notions
of their boundless importance, men of shrewd business ca-
pacity, and reckless speculators, — all very much as may be
found upon the island of Manhattan in this year of grace
nineteen hundred and two. About the only type which the
author has been unable to meet with in his researches is
the dunder-headed Dutchman of fictitious history and of his-
torical fiction, — the embodiment of the popular idea of the
Dutch phlegmatic temperament; a marvellous compound of
Captain Bunsby and the Fat Boy in Pickwick.
At a later period Mr. D. T. Valentine began the first really
earnest and systematic attempt to bring out the actual features
of the old Dutch establishment. The labors of this gen-
tleman were severe, though not very methodical, and he is
entitled to great credit for the mass of materials which he has
brought together out of their original obscurity. Mr. Valen-
tine, however, was not very well acquainted with the Dutch
language, and, worse than that, he was peculiarly prone to
giving fanciful explanations to imperfectly understood facts.
These sometimes led to the most extraordinary and absurd
conclusions. Thus, for example, when some years after the
surrender to the English, the ferry-master at Haarlem discov-
ered that he was being deprived of his legitimate fees by a
practice which had grown up among the drovers of driving
their horses and cattle through the woods to a ford across
the narrow Spuyten Duyvil Creek, near the present King's
Bridge, and there wading across at certain stages of the tide,
he applied for permission to erect a tavern at this spot for the
PREFACE
vii
purpose of watching the wading-place. Mr. Valentine appears
to have found a portion of the record granting the ferry-
master the privilege of establishing the tavern at what is
designated by the illiterate scribe as " the wedding-place."
Thereupon Mr. Valentine has given a romantic account, to the
effect that this paltry tavern, in its lonely and then almost
inaccessible location in the wilderness, received its name
from being the favorite resort of wedding parties from New
Amsterdam.
Again, in the case of Gerrit Hendricksen, who was famil-
iarly called — in all probability from some peculiarity of his
person or habitual dress — " de blauw boer" literally, the blue
boor or farmer, Mr. Valentine, having found certain deeds
in which the property is described as adjoining " de blauw
boer," has in some inexplicable manner translated the phrase
as " The Blue Boar" and (perhaps with visions of the Boar's
Head in Eastcheap in his mind) has gravely stated that the
premises referred to tvere occupied as a tavern with the sign of
the Blue Boar. •
Many other examples of Mr. Valentine's inaccuracies might
be given, but the foregoing will suffice. They seem to have
been very carefully followed in many instances by subsequent
writers whose accounts are based upon his researches. Even
in the case of so graceful a writer as the author of the " Tour
around New York," his work is marred by numerous errors
whenever he quits the domain of personal reminiscences.
Since, then, Washington Irving has described New Amster-
dam, not as it was ; and since Mr. Valentine has described it,
in many respects as it was not, there seemed to be some room
for an attempt to extract from the original records something
which should more closely represent the actual conditions
existing in the Dutch town, — whence the present essay.
The work is mainly based upon topographical researches,
the dangerous field of family genealogy having been avoided
by the author as far as possible, except where it seemed
necessary to introduce genealogical matter in order to eluci-
date various portions of the text.
viii
PREFACE
The especial acknowledgments of the author are due to
Mr. W. Eames, Librarian of the Lenox Library, for many
favors in the prosecution of his researches, and more particu-
larly for placing at his service the extensive and very valuable
Bancker Collection, so-called, of plans and surveys, in the
possession of the Library. These, though only of indirect
benefit to the author in the present work, are invaluable to
the student of the topography of New York in the later
Colonial period.
So, too, the especial thanks of the author are owing to his
friend, Mr. A. J. F. van Laer, Librarian of the Manuscript
Department of the State Library at Albany, for the unwearied
patience and courtesy with which he has met the author's
somewhat large calls upon his time and attention, and for the
valuable information received from him upon many points.
The enthusiastic interest which this gentleman has shown in
the history and antiquities of the offshoot from his native
country, which, planted upon the island of Manhattan in the
early portion of the seventeenth century, has grown from
feeble beginnings till it is threatening to rob London itself of
the municipal pre-eminence of the world, cannot but be grat-
ifying to a native New York student of the history of the
latter metropolis.
J. H. I.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Page
Early Growth of the Settlement. — The Common Pasture
Field. — Brugh Straet and Brouwer Straet. — Philip
Geraerdy and hie White Horse Tavern 1
CHAPTER II
Winckel Straet, and the House of Dominie Bogardus. —
The West India Company's Old Storehouse. — Schreyers
Hoek 13
CHAPTER III
The West India Company and its Colonial Officers. — The
Quarrel between Director Kieft and Dominie Bogardus.
— The Wreck of the "Princess" 21
CHAPTER IV
"The Five Stone Houses." — The Brugh Steegh, or Bridge
Lane. — The Brewery of the West India Company. —
Pieter Cornelissen and his Garden. — Hendrick Kip,
The Tailor 31
CHAPTER V
Hendrick Kip and his House. — The Kip Cottages on Stone
Street. — Jan Jansen van St. Obin and the Slave Ship
"Gideon" 38
CHAPTER VI
The Wtater-side. — Dr. Hans Kiersted. — The Houses of
cornelis van steenwyck and johannes xevius. — cap-
TAIN Paulus Vandergrift.— The New Storehouse of
the West India Company. — The Warehouse of Augus-
ty\ II Hermans. — Secretary Van Tienhoven. — The Old
Church and Parsonage 45
X
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VII
Page
Adam Roelantsen, the First Schoolmaster in New Amster-
dam, and his House on Stone Street. — Captain Willem
Tomassen 61
CHAPTER VIII
Surgeon Van der Bogaerdt and his House. — His Tragical
Death. — The Privateer "La Garce" and her Prizes. —
Isaac de Foreest 68
CHAPTER IX
The Van Cortlandt Homestead. — Catherine van Cort-
landt and her cliurch at sleepy hollow. — van couwen-
hoven's Houses on Stone Street. — Pieter Hartgers,
the Wampum Commissioner 75
CHAPTER X
The " Ditch," or Graft. — Teunis Craie and his Houses on
the Ditch. — The Jews in New Amsterdam. — Solomon
La Chair, the Notary, and his Tavern. — The Banish-
ment OF MlCHIEL PlCQUET 81
CHAPTER XI
Cornelis Melyn, Patroon of Staten Island. — The Indian
Troubles. — Jochem Pietersen Kuyter. — The Struggles
of Melyn and Kuyter against the Colonial Authorities.
— The Baron Van der Capellen. — Sibout Claesen, of
Hoorn 94
CHAPTER XII
Jacob Steendam, the Dutch Poet, and his House. — His
Poetical Works. — "Den Distelvink." — Poems on New
Netherland. — His Latter Years at Batavia . . . . 127
CHAPTER XIII
Jacob van Couwenhoven and his Brewery. — Prinse
Straet, and "The Gardens." — Slyck Steegh, or Mill
Lane. — The Bark Mill. — Dominie Michaelis and the
First Dutch Church. — Evert Duyckink 144
CONTENTS
XI
CHAPTER XIV
Page
The Houses of Barent Jansen, Jan Nagel, Claes Carsten-
sen, and jochem calder. — pleter andrikssen and his
Troubles with the Indians. — Nicholas de Meyer. —
Wessel Evertsen, the Fisherman. — Rut Jacobsen . . 161
CHAPTER XV
The "Great Tavern," afterwards the Town Hall. —
Its Historical and Political Associations. — Dominie
Bogardus's Party. — The Courts. — The Shirt Case. —
Governor Lovelace's Tavern 175
CHAPTER XVI
The "English Quarter," and the Grants to Thomas
wlllet and to rlchard smith. — wllliam paterson,
the Scotchman, and his Adventures. — Who was he? —
An Historical Problem 192
CHAPTER XVII
Hanover Square and Burger's Path. — Burger Jorissen,
the Smith. — The Thirty Years' War. — Hendrick Jan-
sen, the Tailor, and his Opinion of Director Kieft.
— Smith Street 223
CHAPTER XVIII
GOVERT LOOCKERMANS AND HIS FAMILY. — ELSIE LeISLER.
—The Loockermans' House and its Associations.—
Captain Kidd 235
CHAPTER XIX
Sergeant Daniel Litscho and his Tavern. — Andries Joch-
emsen. — The " Outhoek." — Wall Street and the
Palisades of 1653. — Tymen Jansen, the Ship Carpenter,
and his House 267
CHAPTER XX
The Smits Vly. — Hendrick Jansen's Grant. — Augustyn
Heermans and his House. — Maryn Adriaensen and his
Attack on Director Kieft 279
xii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXI
Page
The Maagde Paetje, or Maiden Lane. — Skipper Cornelis-
8en. — frederik lubbertsen and his house. — jan and
Mary Peeck. — Sander Leendertsen's House. — Jan
Vtnje, the First White Child born in New Nether-
land. — Vinje's Brewery 296
CHAPTER XXII
Secretary Van Tienhoven's Bouwery of " Wallenstein."
— The Gouwenberg. — Van Tienhoven's Lane. — The
Vanderclyff Family 309
CHAPTER XXIII
The Hamlet at the Ferry. — Lambert Moll. — Hage
Bruynsen, the Swede. — Dirck Volckertsen and his
Brother-in-Law, Abraham Verplanck. — Thomas Hall's
Place 319
CHAPTER XXIV
The Town's End and Bestevaers Kreupelbosch. — Isaac
Allerton and his Warehouse. — Loockermans' Farm. —
The Ferry. — Harry Brazier's House. — Dirck, the
Potter 329
APPENDIX I
The Justus Danckers View of New Amsterdam .... 347
APPENDIX II
The Descendants of Cornelis Melyn 350
INDEX
357
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
View of New Amsterdam about 1650 Frontispiece
(Reversed from a copy of the etching of Justus Danckers' Amster-
dam, in the author's possession.)
Plan of New Amsterdam about 1644 To face page 1
New Amsterdam about 1630 " 2
(From the View in Hartgers' " Beschrijvingh van Virginia,"
Lenox Library, New York City.)
Schreyers Hoek Toren, Amsterdam " 18
(From Wagenaar's "Amsterdam.")
The West India Company's House, Amsterdam . . " 22
(From a print of 1693.)
The West India Company's Warehouse 44 24
(From a print in the author's possession.)
Plan of the Ground between Brugh Straet and the
East River, New Amsterdam, in 1655 .... " 44
Cornelis van Steenwyck " 48
(From the portrait in Manual of the New York Common Coun-
cil, 1864.)
View of the Marckveldt and 't Water, 1652 ... 44 58
(Enlarged from the Justus Danckers and Visscher Views of New
Amsterdam.)
Plan of Brouwer Straet and Hoogh Straet from Fort
Amsterdam to the Stadt Huys " 80
View of the East River Shore in the vicinity of the
44 Graft," 1652 44 104
(Enlarged from the Justus Danckers and Visscher Views of New
Amsterdam.)
The Heere Graft, Amsterdam, 1795 44 122
(From an aquatint engraving in Ireland's " Tour through Hol-
land.")
View of the Southeast Corner of Broad and Stone
Streets 44 124
xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Jacob Steendam — The Kooman Portrait . . To face page 130
(From a print in the Lenox Library, New York.)
South William Street — The Ancient Slyck Steegh . 44 150
View of the Oude Kerk, or Old Church, Amsterdam . " 156
(From Wagenaar's "Amsterdam.")
Stone Street » 170
The Old Stadts Herbergh, or City Tavern, Amsterdam " 176
(From Wagenaar's " Amsterdam.")
Plan of the Stadt Huys, or Town Hall of New Am-
sterdam " 178
The Stadts Herbergh and vicinity, 1 652 " 182
(Enlarged from the Justus Danckers and Visscher Views of New
Amsterdam.)
The Stadt Huys and Burgers Path, 1679 44 188
(From the Danker and Sluyter View, Memoirs L. I. Historical
Society.)
Coenties Alley 44 192
Portrait of William Paterson " 206
(From a Wash drawing in the British Museum.)
View of Old Slip 44 222
Hanover Square 44 224
Plan of New Amsterdam, from the Stadt Huys to the
Town Palisades, 1655 44 240
North Side of Wall Street 44 272
Plan of New Amsterdam, from the Palisades to the
Ferry, 16 55 44 2 78
Augustyn Heermans 44 282
(From the Portrait by himself on his Map of Maryland, British
Museum.)
Looking up Maiden Lane from Pearl Street . ... 44 296
View of Gold Street " 298
Intersection of John and Pearl Streets " 310
A Part of Van Tienhoven's Lane, 1902 44 312
44 The Swamp/' 1902 44 326
Allerton's Warehouse and the Old Ferry, 1679 . . " 336
(From the Danker and Sluyter View.)
NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
•
X
NEW AMSTERDAM
AND ITS PEOPLE
CHAPTER I
EARLY GROWTH OF THE SETTLEMENT.— THE COMMON
PASTURE FIELD. — BRUGH STRAET AND BROUWER
STRAET. — PHILIP GERAERDY AND THE WHITE HORSE
TAVERN
HE city of New York has been fortunate in the pres-
1 ervation of the early records of its settlement. The
study of the beginnings of the great centres of population of
the world possesses a peculiar interest for many, but the early
history of some of these cities, such as Rome, London, and
Paris, is lost in the obscurity of ages long past ; while others,
such as St. Petersburg, and, to a certain extent, Berlin, built
in pursuance of a rigid, pre-arranged plan of the governmental
powers, possess no more of antiquarian interest than does the
growth of New York under the Commissioners' plan of 1807.
In New Amsterdam, however, the early growth of the town
was not only in accordance with the process of natural accre-
tion, but it was made under the auspices of the West India
Company, a private corporation, which kept a rather jealous
eye upon its officials and itj colonists, and maintained a con-
stant intercommunication with them, by means of reports,
letters of instruction, and a system of records of even the
most trivial transactions. These documents, though most of
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If mem'ry o'er their tomh no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Gray.
• 1
2 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the very earliest of them are supposed to have perished, are
quite complete aud full from the year 1838, and from them it
is possible to gain a comprehensive view of New Amsterdam
at almost any subsequent period during the Dutch rule.
The early course of building at the new settlement is pretty
well known. The original log blockhouse, with its surround-
ing palisades, undoubtedly occupied a part of the site of the
later Fort Amsterdam ; that is to say, it stood within the space
embraced by the present Bowling Green, Whitehall, Bridge,
and State streets. Clustering around this structure were the
small cabins of the first settlers, most of whom were mere
Indian traders. Many of these cabins were doubtless de-
stroyed soon after the larger fortifications were " staked out,"
as it is expressed in a letter of 1626. The remainder of the
thirty dwelling-houses which had been built before the close
of that year were apparently scattered in the vicinity of the
blockhouse, in such positions as had been chosen by the
builders, no system of streets existing as yet, and the houses
possibly not being considered as permanent. Afterwards, in
a few instances these earliest settlers received grants of the
plots which they had thus pre-empted, in this way causing
some irregularity and inconvenience in the ground-plan sub-
sequently adopted.1 These early cabins are said to have been
" of bark." They were probably duly framed of hewn
timber, but owing to the lack of saw-mills at this time had
been covered, after the fashion of shingling, with the thick
bark of the chestnut or of other suitable forest trees. The
roofs were all thatched with the native reeds.2
1 See, however, the remarks in note, post, page 33, as to the indications of a
system of streets ; or rather lanes, earlier than that finally adopted.
2 It is the writer's opinion that the very valuable engraved view of New Am-
sterdam, usually spoken of as the " Hartgers view," which is supposed to be
the earliest one extant of the settlement, is to be referred to the period above
spoken of in the text, and may be fixed wi^i comparative certainty to some time
between the years 1628 and 1632, a date considerably earlier than is usually as-
scribed to it. A slight examination of this view by any person acquainted with
the early topography of New Amsterdam will show that it is a reversed one,
and as such must, in all probability, have been taken J>y means of a plain
camera obscura, — no doubt from some point on the Lon£ Island shore, — and
THE COMPANY'S BOUWERYS
3
Soon after the first body of agricultural settlers sent over
by the West India Company had arrived, at about the period
last mentioned, and after the Director, Peter Minuit, had
effected the purchase of Manhattan Island from the Indians,
a body of negro slaves belonging to the Company was set to
work clearing a large space of ground east of the present
Bowery, and extending from a fresh-water swamp occupy-
ing the site of the present Roosevelt and James streets to
Eighteenth or Twentieth Street. This tract was divided into
six " bouwerys " or farms, which, with the buildings erected
upon them by the West India Company, and with certain
stock furnished by that body, were leased to various tenants.
In addition to these farms, several clearings were begun by
individuals, who were promised grants of land on favorable
never restored to its true position. The correct view appears by simply holding
a mirror to the reversed one. Having been obtained by this method, it is evident
that the sketch must approach accuracy in its main details, subject, of course, to
some impairment owing to the small scale upon which the picture is drawn.
Examining it, now, closely, we find one of its principal features to be a row of
stepped gables running parallel with the east side of the fort, and belonging to
some buildings of more than ordinary size. These can be none other than the
Company's "Stone Houses" upon Winckel Straet. Between them and the river
shore no sign appears of the church, erected in 1633. A small cluster of cottages
is seen upon the westerly side of the Broad Street swamp and its ditch ; another
group near the intersection of the present Beaver Street and Broadway ; and a
few more near the windmill upon the North River shore. The buildings shown
number about thirty or thirty-five. Upon the East River shore is shown the
bluff, just west of which the City Tavern was erected in 1641 ; a thicket or grove
upon its summit undoubtedly conceals from view a building of much interest, the
old bark mill, in its isolated location east of the swamp or Blommaert's Vly, in
the loft of which building the first church services were held. Most of these
localities will he treated of more in detail in the text. As for the matter which
seems to have somewhat puzzled Mr. G. M. Asher in his " Essay on the Books
and Pamphlets relating to New Netherland," — that no buildings are shown
within the fort, the answer is that none were as yet built there ; and the main
design of the view is evidently to show the newly planned fortification, as origi-
nally contemplated, for it will be noticed that the walls show embrasures, which,
as far as we are informed, never existed there, the structure as finished being
merely a sodded earthwork, upon which the guns were mounted en barbette.
There is also a fifth bastion shown, upon the south side of the fort, of which
no mention is made in the records or in maps. It is not at all improbable that
this view was originally annexed to a plan, or report of the engineer, to the West
India Company.
4 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
terms by the Company; while to aid in providing for the
maintenance of its officials and servants of various degrees,
the West India Company caused to be cleared and placed
under cultivation the tract extending from Fulton to Cham-
bers Street, and from Broadway to the North River, well
known at first as the " Company's Bouwery ; " then, after
the surrender, in 1664, as the " Duke's Farm," and the
" King's Farm," by virtue of its confiscation to the Crown ;
and later as the "Church Farm," the property of Trinity
Church.
The cleared land upon all these bouwerys, however, was
immediately taken up for the cultivation of tobacco or grain,
and no suitable pasture was found for the cattle. To remedy
this, the Company cleared in part, and enclosed for a common
pasture field, a tract of twenty-five or thirty acres, extending
from the west side of Broadway to the present Nassau and
Chatham streets, and from the line of Ann Street up to a
small pond known as the " Little Kolck," near the present
Duane Street.1 To this pasture field and to the Company's
Farm a road extended from the fort, along the present Broad-
way, then turning eastward and again northward, it skirted
the common pasture field, following the lines of the present
Ann, Nassau, and Chatham streets as far as a point about at
the junction of North William and Chatham streets, where it
deviated to the eastward for the purpose of going around the
high ground known as Catiemut's Hill (this portion of the
road has long been closed), after which it passed along
the present Chatham Square and the Bowery, giving access to
the farms already mentioned. After the lapse of many years,
when the enclosure spoken of was no longer used for a com-
mon pasture, and when the fences had been removed, the road
naturally struck a diagonal line across -the open space, thus
marking out the present Park Row. The earlier route, as
above mentioned, however, was in all probability the first
1 There was, however, a temporary pasturage enclosure laid out at the time
of the arrival of the first agricultural colonists. This, the well-known Schaapen
Weide, or Sheep Pasture, south of Wall Street, will be spoken of hereafter.
FIRST SAW-MILL
5
road of any considerable length on Manhattan Island,1 ante-
dating by several years the river road along the upper portion
of the present Pearl Street.
Soon after 1626, the machinery for a saw-mill arrived from
Holland. This mill, worked by wind-power, after the Holland
fashion, was erected on the shore of Nutten, now Governor's
Island, — a situation which will seem the less singular if one
calls to mind not only the facilities for floating logs to the
spot from the neighboring shores, but also the hundred acres
and more on the island itself, overgrown with the forest of
chestnut, oak, and hickory trees which had given the island
its name. With the advent of this mill, of course, the build-
ings of New Amsterdam began to assume a more finished
appearance. Within a few years after 1633 they had extended
easterly along the north side of Pearl Street (which here ran
nearly along the shore of the river) almost as far as the pres-
ent Broad Street, where at this time the tide ebbed and flowed
through a small salt-water creek which received the drainage
of a considerable area of wet land lying a short distance back
from the river. Here a bridge was built, which afforded
access to a few scattered houses along the shore beyond.
As the importance of the settlement grew, the West India
Company determined to provide more effectually for its pro-
tection ; and the fort, laid out in 1628, according to the mili-
tary science of the day, by an engineer sent from Holland,
had been completed by the year 1635, together with the
various offices of government which it contained. It was
designed at first to surround the fort with a broad esplanade,
but this plan was afterwards for various reasons abandoned ;
while it was entertained, however, certain buildings of the
West India Company were constructed east of the fort, to
face the esplanade, and at a distance of nearly two hundred
feet from the wall. These were a row of five stone houses
containing various workshops of the Company, and will be
spoken of more in detail hereafter; they played a most im-
portant part in the topography of the rising town. When it
1 See post, pages 152 and 271, as to the lane known as the Slyck Steegh.
6 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
became desirable, a few years after the construction of these
buildings, to lay out additional streets for the increasing pop-
ulation, one street was laid out from the south end of this
row of buildings towards the bridge at Broad Street before
spoken of, and this received the name of Brugh Straet, or
Bridge Street, its present designation ; while a parallel one
from the north end of the row of shops, was called, from the
West India Company's brewery, which stood upon it, by the
name of Brouwer Straet, and when, a number of years after-
wards, it was the first street in the town to be paved with
cobblestones, it was called the Stony Street, and is to-day
still known as Stone Street.
In the mean time, while these changes were going on in
the village, most of the available farming land in the lower
half of Manhattan Island had been appropriated. A great
deal of the territory, picturesque enough to the eye, offered
few inducements to the Dutch farmers, who arrived in in-
creasing numbers, — it was "scrubby," as they wrote home.
Consequently, these began to turn their attention to the
neighboring parts of New Jersey and of Long Island, where
at Pavonia and Bergen, at Gouwanus and the Wallabout,
and along the " Mespat Kill," — the present malodorous
Newtown Creek, — and upon the East River shore, they
settled along the edges of the marshes, "like frogs around
a pond," as Pliny has it. These first settlements over the
river were made about in the years 1636-40: a ferry now
became desirable, and was probably started about this period,
at a point where the river was narrowest, near the present
Dover Street. To meet the travel from this ferry, a road was
extended eastward till it came out upon the river shore near
the present Hanover Square, and from that point it followed
the water-side to the ferry. East of the present Broad
Street, it became known as the Hoogh Straet, or High Street ;
along it and along the East River shore, houses began to
spring up, and this part of the town became for a long time
the principal seat of the social and business activity of the
place.
THE WHITE HORSE TAVERN
7
By the year 1655, considerable attention had been paid to
regulating the streets and removing encroachments, and New
Amsterdam had begun to assume the appearance of a settled
town. Selecting that period of time for a survey of some of
the features of the Dutch settlement, let us take our station
at the head of Brouwer, or Stone Street ; in front of us, across
the Marckveldt, — later Whitehall Street, but now usually
known as an extension of Broadway, — rise the sodded ram-
parts of Fort Amsterdam, with one of its brass six-pounders
trained directly down the narrow street. Inside the fort
walls appears the broad stone back of the Governor's house,
flanked by two great exterior chimneys at the ends ; and to
the left or south of this, likewise within the fort, is the
Dutch church with its steep double-gabled roof and low bel-
fry. Beyond these buildings may perhaps be seen the tall
flagstaff with the orange, white, and blue colors of the West
India Company, and a glimpse may be caught likewise of the
slowly revolving sails of the Company's grist-mill, on a little
knoll outside the fort, on the site of the present Battery
Park. Behind us, the unpaved street 1 slopes down towards
a small bridge at the ditch, or graft, in what is now Broad
Street; and at our right, upon the northeast corner of the
street, is the White Horse Tavern of Philip Geraerdy.
Just what induced Philip Ge'rard, as he called himself, or
Geraerdy, as his Dutch neighbors called him, to quit Paris
(for that was his native place), and to try his fortunes in the
little village springing up around the fort at New Amster-
dam, it is not easy to surmise. The Paris of the first half of
the seventeenth century was, even more than the Paris of
a century later, the centre of the political, literary, and social
life of Europe ; and it is not to be supposed that the native
Parisian of that time had greater predilections for the dull
life of a colonist than the Parisians of later days. Cardinal
Richelieu, the most subtle politician of that age, with his
1 The residents of this street petitioned on the 15th of March, 1655, that they
might be allowed to pave the street with cobblestones at their own expense, but
no action was taken iu the matter for a considerable period.
8 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
tenacious purpose of humbling the House of Austria, had
indeed recently thrown France (in alliance with Sweden),
into the bloody struggle of the Thirty Years' War, which was
then desolating Germany and the Flemish provinces : there
was a constant demand for recruits for the French armies,
and Philip was of the military age, — born about 1602, —
and as the great French and Swedish generals of that day
had the habit of very freely exposing their men to the enemy,
Philip may have considered the somewhat monotonous ser-
vice of the West India Company a refuge from the risks of
that most bloody warfare, — as, in fact, did many others.
However this may be, Philip Ge'rard and Marie Pollet, his
wife, found their way to New Amsterdam prior to 1639, and
soon established a small tavern — in fact, small enough to be
sometimes designated a mere koek-huys, or cake-house —
upon the corner of the Marckveldt and Brouwer Straet.
The change which awaited Philip in quitting the French
metropolis must have been a great one. There, all was bust-
ling life, but surrounded everywhere by memorials of times
long past : in the Rue St. Denis and in the Rue St. Jacques
he must have often watched the crowds coming and going
along those historic highways over which the traffic of nigh
two thousand years had passed ; from the river-side, at the
old palace of the Louvre, he had doubtless often viewed that
scene, never to be forgotten, where between the ancient, over-
hanging houses on both sides of the Seine, the isle of La Cite'
appeared, with its tall old mansions and sharp open point at
the Place Dauphine, — like a vast galley in full sail down the
river, the great bronze equestrian statue of Henri Quatre at its
prow, and the heavy square towers of Notre Dame closing the
view. From the same point too, as he looked southwards, he
could see the tall graceful spire of Ste. Genevieve, where it
marked the tomb of King Clovis ; and turning down the
river he could watch, at his right, the gay throngs of the
people of fashion in the garden of the Tuileries, or, across
the river at his left, the frolicking, brawling, drinking, fight-
ing, and love-making crowd of students of the University, in
THE WHITE HORSE TAVERN 9
the Pre* aux Clercs, — likely enough he had mingled with the
latter many a time.
Now, however, in New Amsterdam, all his surroundings
were new and humble: from the garden behind his tavern
(which garden stretched in an irregularly shaped plot of
nearly one hundred and fifty feet in length towards the centre
of the present block, and together with the site of the tavern
itself is at present covered by the massive pile of the Produce
Exchange), he looked, in the first years of his residence here,
down a low slope of open ground to a stretch of bogs and
bushes extending northwards, with a little sluggish brook
winding through it. This was Blommaerts Vly, called after
two or three early settlers of that name ; it is now covered by
Broad Street and its buildings. Encircling this marsh, the
ground rose into low hills, in former years a common pasture
ground for cattle, and afterwards a waste spot, where, between
boulders and blackberry bushes, the negro slaves of the West
India Company were allowed to cultivate for their own use
little patches of Indian corn, beans, and other vegetables, till
1638, when the land was leased by the Company for six years
to Jan Damen, whose farm adjoined it, and who placed part
of this ground, along Broadway, under cultivation, and used
part as a sheep pasture. Between these enclosed fields of the
company and the low hillock upon which Geraerdy's tavern
stood, a small arm of the marsh extended westwards. This
the Company had attempted to drain by constructing an open
ditch along the line of the present Beaver Street ; and along
this ditch two or three cottages were built: from Beaver
Street down to Stone, along the present Broadway, were one
or two more houses, and down Stone Street as many more ;
these were all of Philip Geraerdy's immediate neighbors,
when he built the White Horse tavern in 1641. The tavern
was, as has been said, a small affair, — only eighteen by twenty-
five feet in size, — and the carpenter who erected it estimated
that seventy-five florins, or thirty to forty dollars of the
present currency, would compensate him for his time. Its
" one door and one window n opened into an apartment which
10 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
was in all probability kitchen, dining-room, parlor, and tap-
room, and its thatched roof was still in existence as late as
1658. Philip's tavern connections were not, in fact, of the
highest. The magnates of the city usually patronized the
"City Tavern," on the water-side; the country people from
across the Hudson River resorted to the tavern kept by Pieter
Kock and Annetje his wife, on the opposite side of the
Marckveldt, near where they landed their market boats ; and
the Long Island farmers were in the habit of stopping at
Sergeant Litschoe's tavern on the present Pearl Street.
There remained, however, a considerable class to draw custom
from, composed of the servants and " cadets " of the West
India Company, from the adjacent fort, — bumptious young
fellows from all parts of Northern Europe, who caroused and
brawled at the tavern when off duty, and who not infrequently
paid for their pranks by " riding the wooden horse," and by
other military punishments. Here, too, when now and then a
French privateer came into port, the French sailors were wont
to resort, to negotiate for the discounting of their prize money,
or for forwarding it home ; for Philip seems to have been a
man of considerable business capacity, and besides his own
language was acquainted with both Dutch and English, occa-
sionally performing the duties of an interpreter.
It was not all cakes and beer at the sign of the White
Horse, however. In 1644, part of a shipment of wine, the
whereabouts of which became a subject of investigation by
the authorities, was shown to have found its way to Philip
Geraerdy's cellar ; and here, too, men of more consideration
than the general run of his customers occasionally resorted,
such, for instance, as Jan Damen, the thrifty farmer just out of
town, whose well-managed farm lay in part between the pres-
ent Maiden Lane and Wall Street. Philip duly appreciated
such clients, and when Jan Damen became unsteady upon his
legs, would obligingly see him home when the road was dark.
He did this upon one occasion, to his great inconvenience, as
he tells. It was a very dark night in the spring of 1643,
when they reached Jan Damen's farmhouse, not far from the
THE WHITE HORSE TAVERN
11
present Pine Street. That individual seems to have been in a
rather quarrelsome mood, for Geraerdy had taken the precau-
tion to draw his guest's sword from its scabbard and to carry
it himself. At the house they found Jan Damen's serving-
man in a very unamiable temper at being waked between twelve
and one o'clock, and he threatened to shoot his employer.
" Finally," says Philip, " the above Damen and his servant
Dirck began to fight, the man having a knife, and Jan Damen
a scabbard, over which Jan Damen fell backwards, deponent
having his drawn sword in his hand for the purpose of separat-
ing them. Jan Damen stood up and jumped into the house ;
he returned immediately with a knife, and as it was very dark,
Jan Damen struck deponent under the shoulder-blade," etc. —
the surgeon declared it to be a pretty dangerous wound.
The White Horse tavern appears to have been a pretty
orderly place, upon the whole, but now and then an affray
would occur there to enliven the town ; upon one of these
occasions, the majesty of the Worshipful West India Company
was seriously affronted in the person of Hendrick van Dyke,
the ensign of its garrison, who was afterwards " fiscal," or
prosecuting attorney of the colony. His assailant was an
individual rather obscurely spoken of as "Black John," who,
as it would seem from his remarks, had come from the seaport
of Monnikendam, a few miles from Amsterdam on the Zuyder
Zee. Surgeon V an der Bogaerdt of the Company describes
the courtly flow of compliments between the actors in the
affair, and its unexpected ending. He says that "being at the
house of Philip Geraerdy, he heard Black John say to Ensign
Van Dyk : ' Brother, my service to you ! ' to which the ensign
answered, ' Brother, I thank you.' Instead of handing over
the can, Black John struck the ensign with the can on the
forehead, so that the blood flowed, saying that is his Monni-
kendam fashion, and then threw the ensign over on his back ;
— and all this happened without their having any dispute or
words with each other."
Philip Geraerdy throve in his calling, and within ten or
twelve years from the erection of the little tavern upon the
12 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
corner, he had built a new house for his own residence, in his
garden, and some fifty or sixty feet down Stone Street.1 By
that time, indeed, he may have rented out his tavern, for in
1653, upon occasion of aiding in a loan to the magistrates
to build the palisades at Wall Street, he is described as a
" trader," — which usually indicated a person who was doing
a little bartering with the Indians. He seems, moreover, to
have turned his thoughts towards acquiring a bouwery upon
Long Island, for in that same year 1653 he received (likely
enough, in consideration for his loan) a grant of some fifty
acres of fine woodland, sloping down gently to the shore of
the East River, a short distance north of the present Astoria.
His plans, whatever they may have been, were never real-
ized, for he died in 1655. His widow soon married Matthew
de Vos, a very respectable notary of the colony. Philip left
a young son, Jean or Jan Geraerdy, to whom his stepfather
appears to have been a careful guardian. They resided for a
number of years upon the premises in Stone Street, but after
his mother's death, Jean Geraerdy sold the property, and in
1676 appears, in an instrument then executed by him, to have
been a resident of Rhode Island. Curiously enough, one may
see his name, at the present day, in the Italianized form of
Gerhardi, in immediate proximity to its original location in
New Amsterdam.
1 This building appears to have been of brick, and was apparently one of the
best in New Amsterdam, for it was sold at public auction on the 9th of December,
1672, to Captain Thomas Delavall, for 5195 florins, or about at the equivalent of
$2100 of the present currency, — a large price considering the value of money
at the time, and the ruling prices for real estate. Delavall soon sold the property
to John Ryder, another Englishman, from whom it was purchased in 1680 by
Frederick Phillipse, Lord of the Manor of Phillipsburgh in Westchester County,
who owned much other property in this vicinity. The house was undoubtedly
built about 1653, in which year Frans Jansen, the carpenter, sued Geraerdy for
the work done, a claim which the latter resisted on the ground that the contract
for work on the garret portion of the building "has been most scandalously
fulfilled."
CHAPTER II
WINCKEL STRAET, AND THE HOUSE OF DOMINIE BOGAR-
DUS.— THE WEST INDIA COMPANY'S STOREHOUSE.—
SCHREYERS HOEK
Wat bier leeft en oyt vergaderd
Heeft ziju uur en stervens-tijd :
Wat hier (door verselling) naderd
Ook een droevig-scheijdeu leijd :
Wat in vriendschap is verbonden,
Door verkiesing, boven 't bloed
Word te recbt wel noyt geschonden ;
't Bij-zijn nocbtans broken moet.
Jacob Steendam : " Den Distelvink."
THE lounger, smoking his pipe of a summer evening
upon the wooden bench in front of the White Horse
tavern, at the period of which we have been speaking, —
about the year 1655, — looking across Brouwer or Stone
Street, would have seen a row of five small houses, with
their gable ends to the Marck veldt, or Whitehall Street, and
occupying the entire front between Stone and Bridge streets,
now covered by the Kemble Office building. These houses
did not front upon the Marckveldt, but upon a small lane
parallel with it, and only twenty-two feet in width, which
was known as Winckel Straet. At the back of the houses
were small gardens or enclosures, which opened out into the
Marckveldt. These buildings seem to have been erected
about the years 1645-46, and not improbably by the West
India Company itself. Allusion has already been made to
the Company's row of stone shops which extended from
Stone to Bridge Street, and which was intended to face the
broad esplanade of the fort. After the Indian troubles had
broken out, in 1643, there was for a time a desire on the part
14 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
of some of the colonists to acquire building sites under the
immediate shelter of the fort; in order to accommodate
them as far as possible, the Company, among various other
provisions for their aid, determined to appropriate a portion
of the esplanade for building purposes. The narrow Winckel
Straet was therefore laid out along the front of the Com-
pany's shops ; and upon the west side of the new street or
lane were built the houses referred to.
At the period of our survey, the two northernmost of
these houses were owned, as to the one next to Stone Street,
by Hendrick Jansen, a baker; the other belonged to Maxi-
milian van Geele, a merchant of Amsterdam, who seems to
have used it as a temporary residence in the Colony. The
two southernmost houses belonged, the one to a certain
Caspar Stymetz (some years afterwards it became of in-
terest as then belonging to the English Governor, Colonel
Lovelace, and, as so belonging, having been plundered and
confiscated by the Dutch when they recaptured New Am-
sterdam in 1673) ; the house at the corner of Bridge Street
was owned by an Englishman, George Holmes, the pro-
prietor of the solitary tobacco farm at Deutel, or " Turtle "
Bay, on the East River, who, like many others of the farmers
at this time, had a residence within the town.
The middle house of this row, however, is of more general
interest, as having been the last place of residence in New
Amsterdam of Dominie Everardus Bogardus, usually spoken
of (though not with strict accuracy) as the first minister of
the Dutch church at the settlement.
It is the fortune of Dominie Bogardus that his name shines
with a somewhat reflected lustre from that of his wife,
Annetje Janse, of wide reputation, — the energetic lady from
whom so large a portion of the population of New York and
vicinity claims descent, as shown in the various Trinity
Church litigations.
From the upper windows of his house, looking out over
the Marckveldt, Dominie Bogardus could probably have seen,
across the southeastern bastion of Fort Amsterdam, the roof
ANNETJE JANSE BOGARDUS 15
of the cottage in Pearl Street of his respected mother-in-law,
Catharine or "Tryn" Jonas. This lady had long occupied a
responsible position under the West India Company, no less,
in fact, than that of its official midwife, — the thrifty cor-
poration going so far as to make this provision for the welfare
of its colonists. Tryn Jonas was duly sensible of the dignity
and importance of her office, which she exercised with great
independence, even to the extent of refusing upon various
occasions to attend certain of her patients with whose ante-
cedents she was not satisfied. Her daughter Annetje was
married, as early as 1626, and several years before leaving
Holland, to Roeloff Jansen, who came from the valley of the
Meuse, not far from where the crowded spires of Maestricht
looked over the complicated girdle of bastions and ravelins
and lunettes and hornworks which encompassed that famed
fortress.
Reaching the Colony in 1630, Roeloff Jansen and his wife
repaired at first to Fort Orange, or Albany, where, in ad-
dition to his employment as an agricultural foreman to the
patroon Van Rensselaer, he appears to have entered upon a
trading business with the Indians, and it was in the course
of his expeditions in this latter capacity that his name was
given to the beautiful stream in Columbia County, which
still, between solitary overhanging woods, ripples as merrily
over its thick bed of pebbles as when it was first named
Roeloff Jansen's Kill.
Prior to 1636, however, Roeloff Jansen had taken up his
residence in New Amsterdam, and acquired a tract of about
sixty acres along the North River, where it formed a sort of
peninsula between the river and the swamps which then
covered the sites of Canal Street and West Broadway. Here
he had probably erected a small farmhouse upon a low hill
near the river shore at about the present Jay Street; but he
had hardly made a beginning in the work of getting his
bouwery under cultivation when he died, leaving to his
widow Annetje the arduous task of caring for a family of
five small children, in a colony hardly settled as yet.
16 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
In 1633, the Reverend Everardus Bogardus had been sent
over to succeed the somewhat interrupted and broken min-
istry of Dominie Jonas Michaelis. A new though rather
homely church had been built for him upon the East River
shore, or upon the present Pearl Street, between Whitehall
and Broad streets, and adjoining it was the parsonage. The
Dominie was an unmarried man, and lived in solitary state
at the parsonage for several years, drawing his rations from
the West India Company, like the rest of its officials and
employes, — till 1638, when he married the widow Annetje
Janse (or Roeloffse, as she is called, indifferently, following
the Dutch fashion), after a marriage settlement which is
still extant had been drawn up, providing for the securing
to her first husband's children the sum of 200 guilders
each.
Thus, in addition to his clerical duties, the Dominie as-
sumed the cares of a landed proprietor, not only with regard
to the North River farm, — which soon became known as " the
Dominie's Bouwery," — but also as to another and less con-
venient tract which he and his wife had acquired. This was
situated some three or four miles up the East River, where,
at the mouth of the Mespat Kill, two or three low hillocks of
ground rose out of the surrounding marshes, then much
sought for on account of their supply of salt hay for the
cattle. This tract, which covered about one hundred and
thirty acres of upland and meadow, the Dominie had leased
out as early as the summer of 1642, though no house was
erected upon it as yet. The locality, which, graded down to
a few feet above the water level, is now occupied by the
dismal suburb sometimes called Hunter's Point, soon acquired
the name of "Dominie's Hoek," and has been constantly
confounded by writers upon New Amsterdam with the North
River bouwery, some of them going so far, in order to make
it fit in with their theories, as to supply the name of Mespat
Kill to the sluggish little rill flowing through the swamps
along Canal Street.
In the year 1642 it was determined to build a new and
THE HOUSE OF DOMINIE BOGARDUS IT
substantial church within the walls of the fort. The mo-
tives for this change of location are undoubtedly to be found
in the apprehension of Indian troubles, too well justified by
the event. The new church proceeded rather slowly in
building, but within two or three years services were held in
it in its unfinished condition. The old church and the par-
sonage were then converted to other uses, and Dominie
Bogardus appears to have purchased for himself the new
house on the Winckel Straet to which reference has been
made.
Here the Dominie spent the closing years of his ministry.
His riding mare duly saddled and bridled, and brought down
from the North River bouwery, where her pasturage was
provided for with great care in the lease to the tenants, was
probably a familiar sight in the Marckveldt, as she stood at
her owner's back gate (just on the spot where the main
entrance now is to the Kemble Building), waiting for him to
set out on his pastoral visits about the town, and to a number
of rude farmhouses in their half -cleared bouwerys, for two
or three miles up the island.
A good deal of the life of the little community centred
around the house of Dominie Bogardus ; on the opposite side
of the Winckel Straet was the noise and stir of the workmen
in the Company's shops ; on the other side of his house was
the Marckveldt, where the country people came with their
butter and eggs and poultry and vegetables, and now and
then an Indian was to be seen with game or fish. A little
beyond, on the right, where Bowling Green now is, the sol-
diers of the garrison held their drills, or lounged the time
away on pleasant days when off duty. A little more than a
block away, down the Marckveldt, to the left, was the shore
of the East River and the small public dock with its crane
for hoisting merchandise to or from the lighters, and, lying
at anchor beyond, could generally be seen the vessels in
port.
Between the Dominie's house and the shore was a building
which seems to have occupied most of the Marckveldt front
2
18 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
on the east side, between Bridge and Pearl streets. This
was the storehouse of the West India Company; its exact
site is uncertain, but it must have stood upon ground now
embraced in Whitehall Street, for in the grant, in 1646, by
Director Kieft to Doctor Hans Kiersted, of the lot which is
known to have been the present northeast corner of Pearl
and Whitehall streets, it is described as having to the west
"the Company's Warehouse on the Strand." The edifice
can be readily distinguished in the Justus Danckers' View
of New Amsterdam, forming the frontispiece of this work.
A building for this purpose, and upon this site, was probably
one of the earliest erected by the Company; and as such a
structure would naturally be of a substantial character, we
are led to infer that the first building must have been burned
or accidentally destroyed, for in a report made in 1638 it is
stated that " the place where the public store stood can with
difficulty be discovered. " It must have been rebuilt soon after
1638, however, for in 1640, many complaints of overcharges *
having been made by the people, the Council ordered that a
board containing the prices current should be kept in a con-
spicuous position at the store. This building, however, seems
to have ceased to be used for store or warehouse purposes
soon after the advent of Director-General Stuyvesant, when
a new and larger structure appears to have been erected as a
public store, or "pack-huys," — and used at the same time by
the government as a custom-house. This latter building, of
which further notice will be taken,1 stood upon the north side
of Pearl Street a short distance east of the old storehouse.
The architecture of the old building was of the simplest
character, and the purposes for which it was used in its later
years are not known ; it was in all probability removed within
a short period as an obstruction to the thoroughfare of the
Marckveldt.
To the right or west of the Marckveldt, and a short dis-
tance beyond where it terminated upon the shore of the East
River, was a low bank of land projecting out to a point the
1 See page 52, post.
SCHREYERS HOEK
19
site of which is now in the Battery Park, a short distance
north of the Staten Island Ferry-house. This was the
Capske, — the "cape," or "point," — being the southern ter-
mination of Manhattan Island; but it was more generally
known in Dominie Bogardus's time as "Schreyers Hoek."
The sojourner at Amsterdam, strolling down one of the lines
of street bordering the broad stream of the Amstel as it winds
through that city, comes out upon a point of land projecting
a short distance into the harbor, at the right of the river's
mouth. Near it stands a venerable old battlemented tower
of stone, with its roof thrown up into a high conical peak of
curious form. Here, in the seventeenth century, the Dutch
emigrants and their families usually embarked in small boats
to reach the East Indiamen or other vessels which lay in the
harbor, a short distance, out beyond the curving double line
of " booms " near the shore. Here, too, their relatives and
friends were wont to assemble to take their last leave of
those who were bound for the uttermost parts of the globe,
— for Ceylon and Batavia, for Brazil and New Netherland,
— and whom in most cases they never expected to see again
upon earth. From the natural scenes of grief displayed upon
these occasions, the locality acquired the name of Schreyers
Hoek, "the Weepers' Point," and the tower still retains the
name of Schreyers Hoek Tooren. Amsterdam influences
prevailed in New Netherland, and the point of land near the
public dock, on which the people of New Amsterdam were
accustomed to gather upon the important occasion of the
sailing of a vessel for Holland, to wave their farewells to
friends returning to the old country, naturally acquired the
name of the similarly situated locality at Amsterdam, just
referred to, and became known also as Schreyers Hoek.
Upon this point of land was to have been seen, a short time
prior to the period of our survey, in 1655, a deserted cabin,
and near it, upon the shore, was drawn up a warped and
decaying catboat. These were the property of one Thomas
Baxter, an Englishman who, falling out with the Dutch
authorities, had abandoned his possessions here and taken
20 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
refuge in New England, where, upon occasion of the war
between the English Commonwealth and the Netherlands in
1653, he took out so-called letters of marque from the little
Colony of Rhode Island, which asserted thus early its dignity.
With a small armed vessel he pestered the Dutch greatly,
and captured two or three of their ships. His property on
the Schreyers Hoek was confiscated, and upon its site,
greatly raised by rilling in, was built Director-General
Stuyvesant's residence, which afterwards became known as
"The White Hall," part of the ground of which is now
occupied by the large and somewhat antiquated-looking
brick building at the corner of State and Whitehall streets.
There are some reasons to suspect that this name was derived
from the old palace of Whitehall at Westminster, at that
time in its last days, and that it was given rather derisively
by the English to Director-General Stuyvesant's not very
imposing mansion.
CHAPTER III
THE WEST INDIA COMPANY AND ITS COLONIAL OFFI-
CERS.—THE QUARREL BETWEEN DIRECTOR KIEFT AND
DOMINIE BOGARDUS.— THE WRECK OF THE "PRINCESS"
Who holds the reins upon you ?
The latest gale set free.
What meat is in your mangers ?
The glut of all the sea.
'Twixt tide and tide's returning
Great store of newly dead, —
The bones of those that faced us,
And the hearts of those that fled.
Kipling: "White Horses."
0 sketch of Dominie Bogardus would be complete
X ^1 without some reference to the disputes between him
and the Director Kieft, which occupied the closing years of
the Dominie's ministry at New Amsterdam.
The Dutch West India Company, which at one time gave
promise of becoming one of the greatest trading corporations
ever organized, — which as early as 1626 had a fleet of
seventy-three vessels, many of them armed, at its disposal;
and which claimed or actually occupied, not only the vast
territories of Brazil, but immense tracts of land upon the
coasts of Africa, besides New Netherland, and its possessions
in the West Indies, — was frequently unfortunate in the
administrative officers of its colonies. These men, usually
advanced through various gradations from clerks' desks in
the historic buildings upon the Haerlemmer Straet and on
the Y-Graft, in Amsterdam, which were successively the head-
quarters of the West India Company, were often entirely
lacking in the qualities essential to a successful magistracy.
22 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Relieved from the personal supervision of the general officers
of the Company, and with extensive powers conferred upon
them over the new settlers, they became veritable Sancho
Panzas in the colonies. Of these, perhaps the worst speci-
men was Willem Kieft, Director-General at New Amsterdam
from 1638 to 1647.
It is somewhat difficult to describe the character of this
man, or to decide which was its leading trait, — his hypoc-
risy, his self-importance, his administrative incapacity, or the
rancorous venom of his disposition towards his opponents.
He had, in fact, all of the offensive qualities of his successor,
Director Stuyvesant, without the tenacity of purpose and
will of the latter. He was perhaps more thoroughly hated
and despised by all classes of the community than any other
inhabitant of New Netherland. Moreover, he was as sensi-
tive to criticism upon his official acts as are most small-minded
men placed in positions of considerable power, and, like such
individuals, he was prone to look upon the least animadver-
sion upon his conduct, or upon any doubts expressed in rela-
tion to the wisdom of his administrative policy, as " treason "
of the most glaring description.
The motives which impelled Kieft to order the cruel mas-
sacre of the Weckquaskeek Indians, in 1643, are not fully
known, but seem to have been, in considerable measure,
owing to a desire of obtaining easy possession of the lands
occupied by them. That tribe, fleeing before a raid of their
dreaded enemies, the Mohawks of the north, abandoned their
village on the Hudson River near the present Hastings, in
Westchester County, and came in the depth of winter to
Manhattan Island, and to Pavonia on the west side of the
Hudson River, where they encamped in a very destitute and
starving condition. Their pitiable plight excited the com-
miseration of many of the Dutch, who furnished them with
food. Not so with Kieft, however; to him it appeared only
as a good opportunity, prepared by Providence, to make the
savages "wipe their chops," — as he feelingly expressed it,
— to settle up old scores, and by exterminating the Indians
KIEFT'S INDIAN POLICY
23
to facilitate the expansion of the Colony; and his famous
order was issued accordingly : —
" February 25th, 1643. We authorize Maryn Andriessen,
at his request, with his associates to attack a party of savages
skulking behind Corlaers Hook or plantation, and act with
them in such a manner as they shall deem proper and the
time and opportunity will permit. Sergeant Rodolf is com-
manded to take a troop of soldiers and lead them to Pavonia,
there to drive away and destroy the savages lying near Jan
Evertsen's, but to spare as much as possible their wives and
children and take them prisoners. Hans Stein, who is well
acquainted with the haunts of the Indians, is to go with him.
The exploit should be executed at night with the greatest
caution and prudence. God bless the expedition! "
Captain David de Vries, sitting by the fire in the Director's
kitchen at the fort that cold winter's night, and anxiously
awaiting the results of the "exploit," to which he was vio-
lently opposed, tells the rest : —
"At midnight I heard loud shrieks, and went out to the
parapet of the fort and looked towards Pavonia. I saw
nothing but the flashing of the guns. I heard no more the
cries of the Indians."
More than a hundred Indians — men, women, and chil-
dren— were killed by these two parties; they were merely
butchered in cold blood, for they were completely taken by
surprise, — even to the extent of imagining at first that they
were assailed by their enemies, the Mohawks; and they made
scarcely any resistance. "No barbarity," says Valentine,
"was too shocking to be inflicted upon them."
The natural consequences of such an act as this followed
swiftly. Most of the outlying farms around New Amster-
dam were devastated, and the settlers slain or carried into
captivity, by the enraged Indians. There were but few of
the inhabitants of New Netherland who did not severely
suffer, either directly or indirectly, by this foolhardy and
cruel policy of Kieft, and he and his advisers were bitterly
attacked by all classes of the community in consequence.
24 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Among the most outspoken of their antagonists was Dominie
Bogardus, who, as Valentine says, "fulminated against
them in the pulpit until he fairly drove them out of the
congregation."
There is considerable evidence that the Dominie was of a
rather convivial disposition, though it is not to be believed
that he was guilty of anything like the excesses with which
Kieft afterwards charged him. It was at the wedding of
Magdalena Verdon to Adam Brouwer, a young soldier from
Cologne, in the employ of the West India Company, on
March 21, 1645, that the Dominie made some public remarks
of a rather personal nature respecting Kieft, which seem to
have induced that individual to open fire, as it were, upon
his reverend opponent. Two days afterwards, accordingly,
he sent the clergyman what he calls "a Christian admonition,"
— which the latter declined to receive, and proceeded with
his denunciations of Kieft and his policy. At last, on the 2d
of January, 1646, Kieft issued his final and celebrated mani-
festo, beginning in the imposing form : " In the name of the
Lord, Amen! The Honorable Director and Council, to the
Reverend Everardus Bogardus, Minister of the Gospel in
this place." Though couched in this official form, the whole
proceeding is transparently the work of Kieft personally.
As his grievances consisted, in large measure, in Dominie
Bogardus's public criticisms upon his administrative acts, he
opens his manifesto, with fine relevancy, by attacking the
Dominie's personal habits, critically distinguishing the acts
which he had done, for the six or seven years preceding,
when "pretty drunk," from those performed when "thor-
oughly drunk." He then proceeds to animadvert upon
Dominie Bogardus's conduct in regard to certain matters of
church discipline, about which Kieft had as much concern as
the drummer of the garrison. Gradually getting to the gist
of the matter, he reminds the clergyman of his remarks in a
sermon preached by him a short time before, in which he had
alluded to certain monsters of the tropics, — " but you know
not, said you, from whence, in such a temperate clime as
KIEFT'S MANIFESTO
25
this, such monsters of men are produced. They are the
mighty ones who place their confidence in men, and not in
the Lord! Children might have told to whom you alluded."
Having thus shown how aptly he felt these remarks, as well
as certain others of which he complained, to have applied to
himself, the Director proceeds to business : " All these things
being regarded by us as having a tendency towards the
general ruin of the country, both Church and State being
endangered where the magistrate is despised, and it being
considered that your duty and oath imperatively demand
their proper maintenance ; whereas your conduct stirs up the
people (already too much divided) to mutiny and rebellion,
. . . our sacred duty demanded that we seek out a remedy
against this evil; and this remedy we now intend to employ,
in virtue of our high commission from the Company, and we
design to prosecute you in a court of justice ; and to do it in
due form we made an order that a copy of these our delibera-
tions should be delivered to you to answer in fourteen days,
protesting that we intend to treat you with such Christian
lenity as our conscience and the welfare of State and Church
shall in any way permit."
The papers presenting Dominie Bogardus's side of this
controversy have all perished, but it is very evident that he
stoutly maintained his ground, and goaded his small-minded
antagonist into a state of fury with each successive rejoinder
he made. He lost no time in replying to the document above
set forth, by a communication which Kieft characterized
as "useless and absurd, as not answering in any respect the
charges conveyed to said Bogardus on the 2d January, 1646.
Wherefore it is decreed that said Bogardus shall, within the
time limited, answer precisely the contents of that paper in
an affirmative or negative manner, under penalty that action
be taken against him as a rebel and contumax."
Dominie Bogardus soon sent in a further reply to the
Director which was still less to his liking than the former
one, for upon the 18th of January, 1646, he caused an entry
to be made in the Council Minutes, in which he characterized
26 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
"a certain paper of Reverend Bogardus," sent to him by that
gentleman through the court messenger, as "filled with use-
less subterfuges, calumnies, and injuries, besides with a
profanation of God's holy word, and designed to vilify His
magistrates, of which said Reverend Bogardus, according to
his custom, makes use to obscure the truth, and not at all
answering our griefs and charges."
This paper warfare of legal threats on the one hand, and
of apparent denunciation and defiance on the other, was kept
up for several months; Dominie Bogardus evidently deny-
ing the jurisdiction of the Director and his Council to try the
cause against him, and Kieft being apparently not sure of
his ground, and living in the constant fear of afterclaps from
the home government. In the mean time the Dominie was
harassed by a sort of flank attack in the shape of a suit for
slander brought against him by Oloff: Stevensen van Cort-
landt, a deacon of his church and a prominent citizen of New
Amsterdam. This latter proceeding, however, was not so
much the work of Oloff Stevensen as of Kieft himself, —
" Iago hurt him,
Iago set him on," —
and finally, by the mutual good offices of several of the
leading men of the community, a reconciliation was brought
about between the Dominie and his deacon.
During the spring and summer of 1646, the Dominie and
the Director- General, looking across the Marckveldt, might
perhaps have often seen one another sitting at their open
windows upon fine days, engaged in writing their mutual
diatribes; but with the latter period came a change, for it
was known then that Kieft' s official days were numbered,
and that a new Director and Council were to be appointed.
The prosecution of Dominie Bogardus seems to have re-
mained in abeyance for a time, and to have finally taken the
form of charges preferred against him to the Classis of
Amsterdam, but of their precise nature we are ignorant.
THE SHIP " PRINCESS "
27
The latter part of the summei of 1647 was a period of much
activity in New Amsterdam. Out in the East River, a little
way from the shore, the ship "Princess " lay at anchor, soon
to sail for Amsterdam with a heavy passenger list. Kieft and
one or two of his late advisers were to return to the Nether-
lands with the formidable task before them of explaining to
the Directors of the West India Company the justice and
expediency of his recent measures with the Indians. He had
succeeded, at the first coming of Director- General Stuyve-
sant, in poisoning the mind of the latter against several of
his, Kieft's, principal opponents, and two or three of them
had been heavily fined and banished from the Colony ; in this
number were Captain Jochem Pietersen Kuyter and Cornelis
Melyn, — two able and determined men, of whom further
notice will be taken hereafter; they were now making ready
for the voyage, with all their detestation of Kieft transferred
to his successor, and fully prepared to renew the battle before
the States-General. With them and in close sympathy, went
Dominie Bogardus to meet Kieft's charges before the ecclesi-
astical tribunal. Among the passengers, too, was Hendrick
Jansen, a tailor, whose coarse but vigorous denunciations of
Kieft had stirred up the latter to procure his banishment also.
Besides these there were merchants and traders returning to
buy goods at Amsterdam, among whom was Simon Dircksen
Pos, one of the pioneer Indian traders in New Netherland.
Several of the servants of the West India Company, whose
terms of employment had expired, were also among the pas-
sengers, as were also some of the colonists, who, their prop-
erties having been destroyed during the Indian troubles, had
given up the struggle and were now only anxious to get back
with their families to the old country.
Many of these passengers were intrusted with various
commissions by their friends remaining behind, and the Sec-
retary of the Colony was kept unusually busy in registering
powers of attorney or "procurations" to collect debts, to
receive legacies, to make purchases, to settle litigations,
and to transact other similar business in various parts of
28 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Europe. Along the water-side the porters of the Company
were actively employed in transferring bales of furs and of
tobacco, with other articles of freight, from the Company's
pack-huys, to the little dock near the foot of the present
Whitehall Street, and thence by lighter to the "Princess."
Among the articles shipped, too, was the wonderful white
beaver-skin tipped with yellow; this sport of nature had
been brought in by an Indian, and was now sent over to the
Netherlands as an unheard of rarity. There was also Kieft's
collection, made for the West India Company, of about a
hundred specimens of the minerals of New Netherland, con-
spicuous among which were the various pieces of pyrites
which he had obtained to the west of Hudson River, and
which he believed to contain gold. Much more valuable
than these was a number of "very exact maps and accounts
of New Netherland," which would have been now of almost
priceless value.
Finally, when the last chests and packages were shipped
and the last passengers had gone on board, the ship's anchor
was weighed amidst the ringing of the church bells and the
firing of cannon from the fort; the last farewells were waved
between the passengers on the vessel and the crowd on
Schreyers Hoek, and the "Princess" sailed down the harbor
on the 17th of August, 1647, long watched from the shore
as she receded through the heavily wooded shores of the
Narrows. Many weeks passed before any further tidings of
her reached New Amsterdam.
On the southern coast of Wales, at the mouth of a broad
valley sloping down from the " Black Mountains " of Breck-
nock and Carmarthen shires, lies the old town of Swansea,
upon what is thought by many to be the most beautiful spot
upon the coast of the English island. Walter Savage Landor
gave it the preference, in an artistic point of view, to the Bay
of Naples. Here, looking seaward upon a fine day, over
the steely-blue waters of the Bristol Channel, the Exmoor
Hills, and beyond them the mountains of Devonshire are
seen in the far distance across the broad estuary, where
WRECK OF THE "PRINCESS"
29
"Silent, majestical, and slow,
The white ships hover to and fro,
With all their ghostly sails unfurled,
As beings from another world
Haunt the dim confines of existence."
From the town westward the shore of yellow sand curves in
a bold, semicircular sweep, not unlike that of the Bay of
Naples, and ends in the massive limestone rocks known as
"The Mumbles," now crowned by a lighthouse of elegant
form. Looking landwards, the valleys stretching inland are
seen to be separated by massive spurs of the mountains of
Wales, which terminate abruptly above the beach. Here, to
many of the passengers and crew of the "Princess," was their
journey's end,
" And very sea-mark of their utmost sail."
The captain of the vessel missed his reckoning in a violent
September gale, and ran up the Bristol Channel. The ship
was thrown upon the rocks near Swansea, and soon went to
pieces; of about one hundred persons on board, eighty
perished, among whom were Kieft and Dominie Bogardus,
— all their dissensions being terminated by the Great
Arbitrator.
After the death of her husband, New Amsterdam seems
to have become distasteful to Annetje Janse Bogardus, and
about the end of 1647 she and her family removed to Fort
Orange, or Albany, where she had spent some of her earlier
years, and where she purchased a house and garden spot at
the northeast corner of Middle Lane (now James Street), and
Joncker or the present State Street; here she died in 1663.
The Dominie's house on the Winckel Straet and the Marck-
veldt in New Amsterdam was retained by his family for a
number of years ; and about the period of our survey, in 1655,
it seems to have been occupied by a tenant, Warner Wessells,
a man of some prominence in the town who purchased it a
year or two afterwards. The quiet street leading up the hill
at Albany, upon which Annetje Bogardus dwelt, has now
30 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
become a broad and busy thoroughfare, over which the
crowds passing to and from the Capitol travel daily, and a
bronze tablet upon the Mechanics and Farmers Savings Bank
at that place marks the site of her house ; but nothing per-
petuates the memory of the dwelling in New Amsterdam
where she and her husband, calumniated and harassed by
their malicious and unscrupulous enemy, passed many dark
and stormy hours.1
1 It is understood, however, that steps have been very recently taken towards
having a commemorative tablet erected upon, or very near to, the site of Dominie
Bogardus's house in Whitehall Street.
CHAPTER IV
"THE FIVE STONE HOUSES." — THE BRUGH STEEGH, OR
BRIDGE LANE. — THE BREWERY OF THE WEST INDIA
COMPANY. — PIETER CORNELISSEN AND HIS GARDEN.
— HENDRICK KIP, THE TAILOR
/^\N the east side of the Winckel Straet, to which pre-
V^/ vious reference has been made, stood five stone build-
ings, of probably two or three stories hi height. These are
usually misnamed, by writers upon New Amsterdam, "The
Company's Storehouses ; " they were, however, in no sense
storehouses, except in so far as they may have served to store
materials for the work which was carried on there. They
were in fact used as workshops for the various branches of
labor conducted under the direction of the oflicers of the West
India Company, and seem to have contained the shops of the
carpenter, the blacksmith, the cooper, and the armorer of the
Company, with probably others, such as those of the tailor,
the shoemaker, the hatter, etc., for the garrison and for the
other employes of that economical corporation, which aimed
at supplying, through its own workmen, most of the wants
of its servants. Perhaps the most singular appurtenance of
the Five Houses was a goathouse in their rear, which was
built in Director Van Twiller's time, as we are informed by
an entry in the records, in 1639.
Of the precise date of the erection of these buildings we
are ignorant, but it must have been very early, for in 1638
we are told that they were " in need of considerable repair." 1
After the surrender to the English, in 1664, the " Five
1 These buildings are clearly distinguishable upon the " Hartgers View " of
1628 or 1630, and were probably then just erected. See ante, page 2, note.
32 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Houses " were confiscated as the property of the West India
Company.1 Being no longer required for their original pur-
poses, they were put to various uses by the English ; among
others they were used for a time partly as officers' quarters,
and partly as a hospital for the garrison ; but becoming dilap-
idated, they were demolished about the year 1680, and the
sites sold. The narrow Winckel Straet was then closed and
granted to the owners of the private houses fronting upon it
on the west, whose lots had previously been rather short
in depth, and were now made to front upon Whitehall
Street. The site of the Five Shops of the West India Com-
pany is now covered, so far at least as the end towards Stone
1 Immediately after the surrender to the English in 1664, an attachment was
sued out against these houses upon an alleged claim against the West India
Company by one George Baxter. Baxter was an Englishman of a rather tur-
bulent disposition who had been for a number of years in the Company's ser-
vice, and was a lieutenant uuder the notorious Captain John Underhill. As
early as 1641, he had attempted to farm a tract upon Manhattan Island, embrac-
ing the site of the present Bellevue Hospital, and forming a part of what was
afterwards known as the Kip's Bay Farm. Subsequently he acquired a tract
of land near Gravesend upon Long Island. He is understood to have been a
brother of Thomas Baxter, whose difficulties with the Dutch Colonial administra-
tion and the confiscation of whose property have been previously alluded to
(ante, p. 19). Influenced by motives apparently not unconnected with his
brother's misfortunes, George Baxter, in the beginning of 1655, was instrumental
in stirring up considerable resistance to the Dutch authorities at Gravesend.
He was promptly arrested and imprisoned at the Town Hall in New Amster-
dam, but while thus in prison he prevailed upon one Thomas Greedy, a resident
of the newly planted settlement of Middelburg (now Newtown) upon Long
Island, to make an attempt, with the aid of a negro man, to drive away his
(Baxter's) cattle, which had been seized by the Gravesend magistrates, and
were in their custody. For this offence Greedy received a sentence of twelve
years' banishment, and the property of Baxter was confiscated. Upon the sur-
render in 1664, however, Baxter, evidently believing that the English day had
come, presented a claim of 1278 florins against the Company for his losses, and
attached their houses as above stated. Cornelis van Ruyven, the former Secre-
tary of the Colony, who had been appointed by Governor Nicoll a trustee or
receiver of the West India Company's property, appeared before the magistrates,
and recapitulated to them Baxter's doings of nearly ten years before. He was
roughly interrupted several times by Baxter, who gave him the lie repeatedly in
the presence of the court. The tribunal was not very sympathetic, for it not
only fined Baxter for contempt of court, but appears to have taken no further
notice of his proceedings.
THE BRUGH STEEGH
Street is concerned, by what is known as the " Merchants'
Building."
The land occupied by the West India Company's shops,
between Stone and Bridge streets, seems to have been partly
bounded upon the east by a narrow and obscure lane, known
as the Br ugh Steegh, or "Bridge Lane," which was a cross-
way to facilitate communication with the bridge over the
small stream which ran through the present Broad Street,
and which was probably in use before Brouwer or Stone
Street was opened through; it may indeed have been the
remains of an earlier plan of streets than the one finally
adopted, for there are evidences of its having extended
through the present blocks as far north as Beaver Street, and
through what was sometimes called the Church Lane (being
a narrow passageway lying west of the first church building),
south into Pearl Street.1 This lane crossed the site now
occupied by the building known as No. 6 on the south side
of Stone Street, and bore off somewhat to the east as it
approached Bridge Street. It was about twenty-two English
feet in width.
Upon the west side of this lane and extending to within a
few feet of Bridge Street, stood a house used at one time ap-
parently as the official residence of the officer known as the
fiscal, or public prosecutor, of the colony. In 1647, it being
then perhaps no longer used for such purposes, we find
1 There are, in fact, certain obscure indications presented by the " Hartgers
View," and by some of the early records, that the first village consisted of three
narrow parallel lanes running north and south, and one — the so-called Beaver
Path — running east and west. Of these lanes the easternmost appears to
have been the Brugh Steegh ; the middle one seems to have occupied the easterly
portion of the present Whitehall Street and the Bowling Green, and to have
been merely widened upon the west, and thrown into the later Marckveldt ;
while the westernmost of the lanes, with the buildings upon it, would then have
occupied the present Bowling Green, into which it would have been thrown, and
its buildings demolished at the time of the construction of the fort and its ap-
proaches, 1628-35. As for the Beaver Path, there can be little doubt that it was
originally a continuation to the North River shore of the present Beaver Street,
and was not, as has been claimed, the present Morris Street. The portion west
of Broadway was closed and granted to private parties before 1650.
3
34 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Director-General Stuyvesant recommending the establishment
of a more permanent school than had hitherto existed, and
that it should be kept " in the kitchen of the fiscal." After
the opening of Stone Street, not long before the date last
mentioned, the lane was no longer much needed for public
use, and it appears to have fallen into the condition of a
mere open passageway. It was not finally closed, however,
till 1674, when with other public lands it was used to afford
small building sites for several persons, whose houses had
been demolished as being too near the fortifications.
Just east of the Brugh Steegh stood the brewery of the
West India Company, upon land now occupied in part by an
engine-house of the New York Fire Department and in part
by the building No. 10 Stone Street. This brewery must have
been erected at a very early date, and undoubtedly gave to
the street its original appellation of the " Brouwer's Straet."
Valentine finds the derivation of the name of this street in
the fact that Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt, who resided
upon the north side of the street, nearly opposite to this
building, was himself at one time engaged in the business of
brewing. It does not appear, however, from the early records
that his brewery actually stood upon Stone Street ; it seems
to have been rather upon the lane known as the Marckveldt
Steegh, of which a fragment survives to-day as Marketfield
Street ; at all events, the brewery of the West India Com-
pany must have antedated Van Cortlandt's residence here by
at least half a score of years. When Peter Stuyvesant was
sent over as Director-General, in 1647, after the ruinous
administration of Kieft, he saw that something must be done
in the way of raising taxes from the people of New Amster-
dam, so as to relieve the West India Company of part of the
burden of maintaining the colony. He could think of no
better device for this end than by enforcing a stringent
excise tax upon wine and beer. In order to carry this out
successfully, it would be desirable for the company to discon-
tinue its own brewing operations, and to throw the business
into the hands of private parties. This led, without doubt, to
PIETER CORNELISSEN'S GARDEN 35
the abandonment of the Company's brewer}', and, in 1651,
the ground is referred to as being "where the Company's
brew-house formerly hath stood." That the building had
then been demolished is not necessarily implied, and does not
seem to have been the case, for on the rude plan of New
York attached to the Nicoll Map, of about 16G6, a building of
more than ordinary size is shown as occupying this location.
Upon a September day in the year 1637, the yacht " Dol-
phin" lay at anchor near the mouth of the Texel. Here,
amidst the crowd of Dutch men-of-war, or merchant vessels,
East Indiamen, Baltic coasters, colliers from Newcastle, and
fishing smacks from all parts of the North Sea, which filled
that great commercial highway of the Netherlands, leading
from the Zuyder Zee out into the German Ocean, the
skipper of the " Dolphin " hailed his brother skipper of the
" Herring." He was in very poor trim for an ocean voyage
to New Amsterdam, to which port he was bound ; his vessel
was leaking badly; he had no carpenter, and his crew
stoutly refused to go to sea without one. Could the skipper of
the " Herring " do anything for him? On board of the " Her-
ring " was a young carpenter named Pieter Cornelissen, whom
the skipper of his vessel was able to spare ; and as he was
willing to go, he embarked on board of the " Dolphin " and
reached New Amsterdam in safety, after a perilous voyage in
which most of the cargo was ruined. He never returned to
Europe, but became a denizen of New Amsterdam. It was
upon such slight accidental circumstances as these that
many of the colonists came to America.
At New Amsterdam, Cornelissen entered the service of the
West India Company as a house carpenter, or " timmerman,"
and thus acquired the appellation which he retained the
remainder of his life, of Pieter Cornelissen Timmerman.
Looking about him for an available building spot in New
Amsterdam, Pieter Cornelissen found, along the south side of
the newly laid out Brouwer or Stone Street, a long, narrow
strip of vacant ground, extending from the West India Com-
36 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
pany's Brewery down to within thirty or forty feet of the
present Broad Street. Brugh or Bridge Street, as has pre-
viously been stated, was in use as a street for a considerable
time before Stone Street was marked out, and the grants of
land upon it were so deep that nothing remained afterwards
upon the latter street but this strip acquired by Cornelissen,
which was only about fifty feet wide at one end, and at the
end towards Broad Street not more than twenty feet wide.
It seems to have been still further curtailed of its dimensions
by a subsequent widening of Brouwer Straet, to the extent
of several feet, the Director and Council reserving the
right to so widen the "road" in the grant to Cornelissen in
1646. Pieter Cornelissen does not seem to have erected any
house upon this property, but he planted it with fruit trees
in preparation for doing so. The present locality of the south
side of Stone Street, towards Broad, is little suggestive of
cherry, peach, and pear trees, yet here they stood in bearing in
the year 1651, at which time Cornelissen departed from New
Amsterdam, probably under the orders of the Company, for
the Dutch settlements on the South or Delaware River. Re-
turning subsequently to New Amsterdam, he rebuilt, after its
destruction, in 1655, by the Indians, the mill upon Wessell's
Creek, in the late town of Newtown, upon Long Island. This
mill site, in a picturesque spot not far from the resort now
known as North Beach, was used for its original purposes
until comparatively recent years, being of late known as
" Jackson's Mill." Pieter Cornelissen did not operate it very-
long himself, but he purchased land in the immediate neighbor-
hood, and was the ancestor of a worthy family not yet extinct
there. Before leaving New Amsterdam, in 1651, he found a
purchaser for his property on Brouwer Straet, in the person of
Jacob Kip, the son of Hendrick Hendricksen Kip, the latter
of whom owned the adjoining property fronting upon Brugh
or Bridge Street, where his house stood. Hendrick, the
father, who was sometime of Amsterdam, seems to have been
one of the earliest settlers in New Amsterdam, and his house
here had probably been built for several years previous to his
ground brief for the land in 1612.
HENDRICK KIP THE TAILOR
37
Hendrick Hendricksen Kip was perhaps one of the most
valorous tailors who ever drew needle. If, as Valentine
somewhat problematically asserts, his cognomen of u Kip "
meant "chicken," it must have referred to a gamecock of the
first breed. He pitted himself against the redoubtable Director
Kief t at an early period, and never smoothed his ruffled feathers
till the latter had departed for the Netherlands upon his recall,
even refusing to give him a parting shake of the hand in
token of amnesty. It was several years before that event, or
about 1643, that Hendrick, according to an officious informer,
uttered a witticism of appalling audacity towards his " divinely
appointed magistrate " (as Kieft was fond of calling himself),
saying that "people ought to send the Kivit" (meaning
" pee-wit," or " lap-wing," — a play at once upon Kieft's name,
person, and character) " home by the Pauwe " (peacock), " and
also to give a letter of recommendation to Master Gerrit " (the
public executioner, or Jack Ketch, of Holland) ; " he, himself,
would willingly send a pound Flemish, in order that he should
let him die like a nobleman." This generous offer had refer-
ence to the custom in the Germanic countries of inflicting
capital punishment upon the nobility by decapitation, and
upon the lower classes by hanging — a custom alluded to by
Heine in his appeal to the Kaiser Friedrich Rothbart, or
Barbarossa, for impartial rule in the " Holy German Empire,"
upon his future awakening from his legendary slumber :
" Nur manchmal wechsle ab und lass
Den Adel h'angen, und kopfe
Ein bisschen die Burger und Bauern, wir sind
Ja alle Gottesgeschbpfe."
Change once in a while, and let the nobleman be hung, and
the peasant's head be chopped off. Are we not all alike
God's creatures !
CHAPTER V
HENDRICK KIP AND HIS HOUSE.— THE KIP COTTAGES
ON STONE STREET.— JAN JAN SEN VAN ST. OBIN AND
THE SLAVE SHIP" GIDEON"
Urn Christi willcn verschone, o ITerr,
Das Leben der schwarzen Sunder !
Erziirnten sie dich, so weisst du ja,
Sie sind so dumra wie die Kinder.
Verschone ihr Leben um Christi willn,
Der fiir uns alle gestorben !
Denn bleiben mir nicht dreihundert Stiick,
So ist mein Geschaft verdorben.
Heine.
IN the last preceding chapter, some allusion was made to
the hostility of Hendrick Hendricksen Kip, the tailor of
Brugh or Bridge Street, towards Director-General Kieft.
So hostile was he, in fact, that he actually refused upon one
occasion to give him something which is usually very freely
tendered, — being such a cheap gift, — namely, advice. It
was after Kieft and his associates had patched up a proposed
treaty with the Indians to end the ruinous war which he had
brought on the colonists in 1643. The Council, on the 30th
of August, 1645, ordered the court messenger to " notify all the
inhabitants to assemble in the Fort when the colors are hoisted
and the bell rung, to hear the proposals on which a peace is
about to be concluded with the Indians, and if any one can give
good advice, then to offer it freely." That worthy made his
report to the Council that a all the citizens in the Manhat-
tans, from the highest to the lowest, will attend, except one
Hendrick Kip, a tailor."
HENDRICK KIP'S HOUSE
39
Although Hendrick seems to have been more fortunate than
many others in keeping out of the clutches of Kieft, yet the
government had its eye upon him ; and when his more indis-
creet " huysvrouw " made public statements that " the Direc-
tor and Council were false judges, and the fiscal a forsworn
fiscal," it pounced upon her at once on a charge of a sort of
lese-majeste. The good lady stoutly denied the charges, but
her husband, with a phenomenal astuteness, appeared before
the court and stated that " his wife has been so upset and so
out of health ever since Maryn Adriaensen's attempt to mur-
der the Director- General, that when disturbed in the least she
knows not what she does/' The reference was to the assault
attempted upon Kieft, nearly three years before, by one Maryn
Adriaensen, in a quarrel about their respective shares of culpa-
bility in bringing about the Indian War. The prosecutor and
the defendant in the court proceedings were ordered to produce
their evidence, but nothing further appears to have been done
in the matter, Kieft being soon afterwards recalled.
With his well-known views respecting the imbecility of the
late administration in New Netherland, Hendrick Kip was
chosen one of the committee known as " The Nine Men,"
which drew up a remonstrance to the States-General against the
policy adopted by the colonial government of the West India
Company, and the ruinous results brought thereby upon the
colonists. The new Director-General, Peter Stuyvesant, im-
mediately took up the cudgels in behalf of all maligned magis-
trates, and sent the Secretary Van Tienhoven over to the
Netherlands to refute the charges made before the States-
General. The " refutation " consisted principally in vilifying
the members of the Committee who had dared to sign the
remonstrance. "As to losses," said the Secretary, "Hendrick
Kip was a tailor, who never lost anything," which in Van
Tienhoven's mouth was only another way of saying he had
nothing to lose.
This, however, was not true. Kip's worldly condition was
doubtless not equal to that of some of the other colonists, but
his house, in its garden of about sixty-five feet front upon
40 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Bridge Street, was quietly occupied by him for many years ;
while upon the land adjoining it on Stone Street, where Pieter
Cornelissen had planted his garden (previously described),
Hendrick's two sons, Isaac and Jacob, and his son-in-law, Jan
Jansen van St. Obin, built houses for themselves. All these
houses had a clear outlook upon the East River, and upon
the vessels in port (which usually anchored directly in front
of them), and to the wooded Long Island shores beyond, —
for no houses were built at this point along the river shore at
Pearl Street, to intercept the view, prior to 1656. The last
buildings upon the shore at that time, coming eastwards from
the fort, were the former Dutch church and its parsonage,
erected in 1633, the church standing nearly opposite the
westerly corner of Hendrick Kip's garden.
It has been already stated that the two sons and the son-in-
law of Hendrick Kip had their dwellings upon the south side
of Stone Street, in what had previously been Pieter Cornelis-
sen's garden. These were probably small cottages, as the
plots of ground upon which they stood were of small size ; and
they were built just about the period of our survey, in 1655,
though the precise dates are uncertain. Their owners were
quite young men at the time, and recently married. The
easternmost of these houses, which extended within forty or
fifty feet of the present Broad Street, was that of Isaac Kip,
afterwards a Hudson River trader; and near it on the west
was that of his brother Jacob, — the site of both these build-
ings being now covered by Davidson's Cafe\ Jacob Kip, the
second of these brothers, was a man of considerable activity
and enterprise. His marriage, in 1654, to Marie de la
Montagne, daughter of Doctor Jean (or Johannes, using the
Latinized form, by which he was generally known) de la
Montagne, seems to have served him in the way of advance-
ment, his wife's father — a French Huguenot, and a man of
education — having stood high in the favor of Kieft and of
the Directors of the West India Company. As one of the city
magistrates, and as Secretary of the Court of Burgomasters,
Jacob Kip's bold, business-like signature is familiar in the
JAN JANSEN VAN ST. OBIN 41
old records, and indeed he was a clerk to Director-General
Stuyvesant at a still earlier date, in 1650. In later years, he
became somewhat of an investor in unimproved or farm lands
on Manhattan Island, and about the year 1670 he bought an
old "frontier" plantation which had seen many vicissitudes,
and there established a farm, to the vicinity of which he gave
a name that became historic, the memory of which has not yet
entirely faded away ; namely, that of " Kip's Bay," on the
East River at about Thirty-Fifth to Thirty-Seventh streets.
Jan Jansen, the brother-in-law of the two young Kips, who
also occupied a house upon the south side of Stone Street,
somewhat to the west of the cottages of the latter, was a per-
son of a rather different disposition. He was undoubtedly of
Dutch or of Flemish extraction, and is usually spoken of in
the records of the time as Jan Jansen van St. Obin ; but in
the church record of his marriage in 1649 to Baertje (or
Bertha) Hendrickse Kip, his place of nativity is given as
" Tubingen," — presumably the city of that name in the
Duchy of Wurtemberg, in Germany. While there may be
grounds for supposing, from the similarity of sound, that the
latter designation is a mistake or a corruption of some other
name, the locality of " St. Obin " seems to be unknown in
Dutch topography. Jan Jansen's father, J an Wansaer, seems
to have been a resident of Casant, not far from Antwerp.
Jan Jansen van St. Obin was a person of nautical proclivi-
ties, insomuch that he became a part owner of the small French
frigate " La Garce," which sailed as a privateer under letters
from the Dutch government. She afterwards got into trouble
with the Admiralty about her prizes, but at the time of Jan
Jansen's interest in her (for he appears to have sold out his
share in 1646) we may presume that she confined her atten-
tion strictly to the Spanish and Portuguese craft which were
within the line of her legitimate business, though the captains
of privateering vessels in this war were sometimes rather
obtuse upon such points, and took almost anything that came
along. Whether Jan Jansen sailed personally in the priva-
teer is not known, but certain it is that occasionally, about
42 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
this time, his business seems to have called him away from
New Amsterdam for protracted periods, at which times he had
the practice of depositing with various prominent men of New
Amsterdam considerable amounts of personal property, taking
their receipts for it, which he caused to be promptly entered
upon the books of the Secretary of the Colony. Upon one of
these occasions, the deposit was of quite a large amount of
silver ware, — rather an unusual stock for a New Netherland
" trader," and which leads to the conjecture that it may have
been picked up by him somewhere upon the Spanish main,
or perhaps in the West Indies. Jan Jansen, however, was
not always fortunate in his adventures, for shortly prior to
1654, a bark in which he was then interested was captured
— or "stolen," as the Dutch authorities expressed it — by
Thomas Baxter, claiming to act under letters of marque
issued at Rhode Island, to which previous allusion has been
made. Baxter, who was probably not much hampered by
Admiralty rules, promptly disposed of his prize to Thomas
Moore of New Haven, but the Dutch government contrived
to bring such pressure to bear upon the latter that, together
with Isaac Allerton, the leading merchant in the New England
trade, at New Amsterdam, he gave a bond for the restoration
of the vessel or its value.
Jan Jansen van St.Obin is perhaps most prominently known
as the pilot of the slave ship " Gideon," which arrived at the
harbor of New Amsterdam, with a cargo of two hundred and
ninety slaves, in August, 1664, a few days before the appear-
ance of the English fleet concerned in the capture of New
Netherland. These slaves, Director Stuyvesant wrote, were
" a very poor assortment. The females certainly all so poor
that we apprehend the largest part of them will remain at our
charge, or we must otherwise part with them at a very low
price." The Director-General's estimate of the condition of
these blacks appears to have been a pretty just one, for we
afterwards find Johan de Decker (who had been a member of
Director Stuyvesant's Council, but who, having become ob-
noxious to the new authorities, had been ordered to " within
THE SLAVE TRADE
43
the space of ten dayes transporte himself e out of this governe-
ment"), presenting a petition from Amsterdam to the Duke
of York for the restoration of certain negroes, forming a part
of the Gideon's " assortment " which had been seized at New-
Amsterdam by order of Governor Nicoll. It appears from
this document that twenty of these negroes had been allotted
to the petitioner by way of settlement of his arrears of salary
at New Amsterdam : ten of them he had otherwise disposed
of, "having ye other tenne negroes in (now so called) New
Yorke in ye custody of one Resolved Waldron to dyett and
keep them for your petitioner." The " Gideon " had evidently
lacked the master mind of "The supercargo, Mynheer van
Koek," of Heine's ballad, who, being distressed by the an-
nouncement from the physician of his slave-ship that the
negroes were dying upon the passage in great numbers, from
melancholy, devised the genial scheme of forcing them by
the lash to daily dances to quick music, in order to keep up
their spirits and drive dull care away.
Whether Jan Jansen, as pilot of the "Gideon," received
his pay in the same commodity as De Decker, we are not in-
formed. He certainly suffered no diminution of respectability
in the community of his time by reason of his occupation ;
furthermore, the gains were large, and that alone would have
been quite sufficient with most of his neighbors to smother
any inconvenient suggestions that might have arisen : —
41 Glass beads, and brandy, and scissors and knives,
And other cheap trash for them giving, —
The profit at least eight hundred per cent,
If I keep the half of them living.
For fetch I three hundred blacks alive
To the port of Rio Janeiro,
'T is a hundred ducats apiece for me,
From the house of Gonzales Perreiro."
If any supersensitive persons were found who ventured to
question the right and justice of this traffic, a host of sup-
porters were as ready then as now, with about as much or as
little hypocrisy, to show the divinely appointed rights of the
44 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
superior race over the inferior, and the law of Destiny which
imperatively demanded that the latter should be flogged, as it
were, out of darkness into the light.
It is only fair to say, however, that among the Dutch of
New Netherland the slave trade exhibited its least repulsive
features. No important difficulties occurred between the
blacks and their masters in New Amsterdam, nor do the
former seem to have been often the subjects of any serious
criminal prosecutions. The negroes settled down into house
and farm servants; the relations between them and their
masters were usually of a somewhat patriarchal nature, manu-
missions were frequent, and sincere attachment was often
manifested on both sides. It was the hysterical English and
their Recorder, Horsmanden, who were responsible for the
ghastly tragedy of the " Negro Plot " in the next century, and
for the fiendish torture of the numerous innocent victims of
that insane delusion.
CHAPTER VI
THE WATER-SIDE. — DR. HANS KIERSTED. — THE HOUSES
OF CORNELIS VAN STEENWYCK AND JOHANNES NEVIUS.
— CAPTAIN PAUL US VANDERGRIFT '— THE STOREHOUSE
OF THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. — THE WAREHOUSE
OF AUGUSTYN HEERMANS. — SECRETARY VAN TIEN-
HOVEN. — THE OLD CHURCH AND PARSONAGE
SOME notice should be taken of the buildings along the river
shore, east of the Marckveldt, or Whitehall Street, and of
their occupants in the year 1655. These houses fronted upon
an open street, then called 't Water, — the modern Pearl
Street, — but upon the opposite side of the roadway was the
open shingly beach of the East River. The houses here, at
the time of our survey, stood in compact order, and were
substantially built, most if not all of them being of brick.
Though the deeds or ground briefs for most of the parcels of
land at this locality were made from 1645 to 1647, it is diffi-
cult to believe that they had not been in several instances
built upon at an earlier period. Nearly all of the buildings
were used for mercantile purposes, the front portions of the
structures being probably used as stores, while the occupants
availed themselves of the other portions for their dwellings.
This place was, in short, the seat of the larger part of the
wholesale and retail trade of the town.
Of the first building, in proceeding eastwards from the
Marckveldt, which building was the former storehouse of
the West India Company, mention has already been made.1
The next house, which soon became the corner one by the
removal of the structure of the West India Company, was long
the residence of Doctor Hans Kiersted, the leading physician
1 See ante, page 18.
46 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
and surgeon of the town. Hans Kiersted and his brother
Jochem (the latter of whom perished in 1647, in the wreck
of the " Princess ") were Germans from Magdeburg; and as
they were early residents of New Amsterdam, there is reason
to suspect that they were refugees after the dreadful sack of
Magdeburg by Count Tilly's savage troops in the year 1631,
at which time Hans Kiersted was about nineteen years of age.
He is found, as early as the year 1638, holding the position of
official surgeon of the West India Company at New Amster-
dam, and the Dutch records contain many of his official cer-
tificates given within the next eight or ten years as to wounds
received in various affrays by the quarrelsome soldiers of the
garrison at Fort Amsterdam.
In 1642, by his marriage to Sarah Roeloffse, Doctor
Kiersted became son-in-law to Annetje Janse Bogardus, and
within a few years after that event, — as early as 1646, — we
find him residing here upon the water-side, where his humble
stock of drugs would doubtless have formed a great contrast
to that of the modern "pharmacy " which has been established
next door to the original site of the trade in New Amsterdam.
Before 1648, "Doctor Hans," as he was frequently called,
had quitted the service of the West India Company, and was
engaged in his own private practice, which seems to have
been a reasonably lucrative one, for as early as 1646 he was
the owner of a "plantation" upon the Bouwery Lane, about
a mile and a half out of the town. Doctor Kiersted died
shortly prior to 1667, but fifty years later his property at the
corner of Pearl and Whitehall streets was still in the occu-
pation of his descendants.
The next neighbor upon the east of Doctor Hans, in the
year 1655, was a man who, though not particularly con-
spicuous at that time, subsequently became of considerable
prominence in the town; this was Cornelis Jacobsen van
Steenwyck, formerly of Haerlem in Holland. The period
of his coming to New Amsterdam is not known, though he is
mentioned as early as 1651, and it appears probable that he
was a brother of Abraham Jacobsen van Steenwyck, who is
CORNELIS VAN STEENWYCK
47
found at New Amsterdam as early as 1643. Cornells van
Steenwyck was a merchant, and in all probability had his
store in this building, which occupied the site of the present
No. 27 Pearl Street; it was a modest house, like that of his
neighbors on either side, and it had not been built by Van
Steenwyck himself, but was purchased by him in 1653 from
a Norwegian, Roeloff Jansen Haies, who seems to have been
the first owner of the property.
Cornells van Steenwyck soon became interested in shipping
ventures ; in 1654 he was a partner with several of the prin-
cipal men of the town 1 in the ship " Golden Shark," then
sent on a voyage to the West Indies, and in the next year
we find him, with several others, signing a protest against the
action of the Director and Council, who had refused to allow
the signers to proceed upon a contemplated voyage to Hol-
land, — for this each of the signers was fined 25 guilders by
the despotic Stuyvesant. In spite, however, of differences
with the authorities, Van Steenwyck seems to have thrived
so well that, in 1663, the Director-General himself had
become a borrower on behalf of the needy West India Com-
pany from that merchant, who agreed to advance the sum of
12,000 guilders (about $4800) in wampum, upon a draft on
the West India Company, backed up by the curious collateral
security of four brass cannon in Fort Amsterdam. He had
at this time indeed become one of the leading merchants in
New Amsterdam, with a keen eye for profits in almost any
direction, handling at one time a cargo of salt, and at another
a cargo of negro slaves. His business, at the time of the
surrender to the English in 1664, had outgrown his modest
store on 't Water, and for several years he had occupied a
more elaborate establishment at the corner of the present
Bridge and Whitehall streets, just back of the house in
which he had dwelt in 1655.
With a fair knowledge of the English language, and with
a disposition readily to accept the English rule, Cornelis van
1 With Paulus Leendertsen van der Grift, Cornelis Schutt, Allard Anthony,
and G overt Loockermans.
48 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Steenwyck soon acquired the confidence of the new authori-
ties, and was a member of the Colonial Council under Gov-
ernors Nicolls and Lovelace. Furthermore, he was popular
with the Dutch citizens, was one of the burgomasters of the
city both before and after the surrender, and was mayor from
1668 to 1670, and again in 1682 and 1683, shortly before his
death. In his latter years Cornells van Steenwyck, who had
long been considered to be a man of wealth, probably kept up
as luxurious a style of living as any one in the Colony at that
time, but at the period of our survey he was an unmarried man,
and his store on 't Water was doubtless not materially different
from the ordinary general store of a small trading town.1
The next neighbor of Cornells van Steenwyck upon the
east, in the year of our survey, was a man who was afterwards
of some prominence as notary and Clerk of the Burgomasters,
or City Clerk, as he may be called, which office he held as
early as 1658, and which he filled for a number of years
subsequent to that time. This was Johannes Nevius, who
is said to have come from Solen or Zoelen, a village of the
district known as The Betuwe, which skirts the south bank
of the Rhine below Arnhem, and who was himself, at the
period of our survey, one of the city magistrates or schepens,
of New Amsterdam, and was a merchant or trader who
seems to have been associated in business with his wife's
step-father, Cornells de Potter, a merchant of note in the
town.2 Looking a mile or so up the East River from his
windows upon the water-side, Johannes Nevius could see
the dwelling-house and the pastures and grain-fields of his
father-in-law's farm just where the Breucklyn Road came
down the hill at the present Fulton Street in Brooklyn.
Here De Potter had purchased, as early as 1652, from
Cornells Dircksen, the old ferryman, and from one or two
1 For sketch by Mr. D. T. Valentine, giving many curious particulars of
Cornelis van Steenwyck, see Man. N. Y. Com. Council for 1864, p. 648.
2 In 1654 Nevius and Cornelis de Potter were sued as being jointly indebted
for the construction of a vessel called the " New Love."
Portrait of Cornelis van Steenwyck
THE TOWN CLERK NEVIUS
49
other owners, the ferry property with sixty or seventy acres
of land lying north of Fulton Street; and with the curious
appurtenance of "thirty-five goats and a half on Jan Marris'
farm at Gravesend," — evidently a share or interest in a herd
kept there. He does not seem to have managed the ferry in
person, but leased it to others.
Ariaentje Bleyck, the wife of Johannes Nevius and step-
daughter of Cornelis de Potter, appears by her marriage
record in the Dutch Church on Nov. 18, 1653, to have been
a native of, or at any rate to have resided at, Batavia, in the
island of Java. It was there, in all probability, that her
mother, Swantje Janse, married Cornelis de Potter (who was
doubtless a widower at the time), since his own daughter
Elizabeth, who in the same year of the marriage of her step-
sister was united in matrimony to Isaac Bedlo, afterwards a
man of note in New Amsterdam, appears likewise in the
marriage record as from Batavia.
Johannes Nevius did not long occupy the house on 't
Water in New Amsterdam, for in 1658 he sold it to his
neighbor Cornelis van Steenwyck. Subsequently the build-
ing, which covered the site of the present house, No. 29 Pearl
Street, became of interest, as the residence for a long time of
Dominie Samuel Drisius, minister of the Dutch Church at
New Amsterdam from 1652 to 1671. 1
In the very interesting and important view of New Am-
sterdam which appears upon the map of Nicolaes Visscher,
of about 1652, 2 as well as in the Justus Danckers view
1 Johannes Nevius, after the surrender to the English in 1664, found himself
greatly hampered in his office of city clerk, by reason of his imperfect knowledge
of the English language. After using the services of an English assistant for a
time, he appears to have given up his office, and to have devoted his latter years
to the management of the ferry establishment belonging to his then deceased
father-in-law's estate. There is a bill extant for ferry services performed by
Johannes Nevius, which was presented to Secretary Nicolls, of the Colonial
Government, in 1676, by the widow of Nevius ; she had previously, in 1672, upon
her petition setting forth that she was a widow " with six small helpless chil-
dren," been allowed an extension for six years of her hnsband's ferry lease.
2 Entitled, " Novi Belgii, Novseque Angliae necnon partis Virginiae Tabula
4
50 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
shown in the frontispiece of the present work, three tall
buildings fronting the East River shore occupy a conspicuous
position. These buildings adjoin one another, and the west-
ernmost of them was only separated by an alleyway from the
house of Johannes Nevius, just referred to above. They
were all erected, as may be asserted with much positiveness,
between the years 1647 and 1651, though the sites of one or
two of them may have been occupied by earlier and smaller
buildings. The westernmost of the three houses was in 1655
the property of Captain Paulus Leendertsen van der Grift,
an old resident of New Amsterdam, who with his brother
Jacob is supposed to have come over from Amsterdam to
New Netherland a number of years before the date men-
tioned. Captain Van der Grift was in the service of the
West India Company as early as 1614, in which year, at the
island of Curacoa, he was appointed to the command of the
ship "Neptune," in which Fortune was not always favorable
to him, for his declaration is still extant that in the following
year he was driven by stress of weather to the coast of Ire-
land, where he had to land and to sell a part of his cargo of
tobacco consigned to Amsterdam.
Captain Van der Grift appears to have been in considerable
favor with Director-General Stuyvesant, who in 1647, at the
beginning of his administration, appointed Van der Grift
Superintendent of Naval Equipments at New Amsterdam,
and one of the City Surveyors; he likewise gave him a seat
in the first administrative council under his regime. The
Captain, however, did not allow his sense of justice to be
multis in locis Emendata a Nicolo Joannis Visschero." This view, which in its way
is a finished production, and almost the only one we possess of New Amsterdam,
drawn with a due regard to the rules of perspective, is, there can be little doubt,
the work of Augustyn Heermans, whose storehouse forms a conspicuous feature
in it. The prominent points of interest in the town are all designated by Dutch
inscriptions ; and the city tavern, which, in the beginning of the year 1653, became
the Town Hall, or " Stadt Huys," and is always spoken of thereafter by that desig-
nation, is still called the " Stadts Herbergh," or tavern. In the second edition of
Adriaen van der Donck's " Beschrijving van Nieuw Nederlandt," in 1656, a rough
copy of this view, without the inscriptions, is inserted, whence it has frequently
been spoken of as the Van der Donck view. The relations of this view to the
one of Justus Danckers have been discussed in an appendix to this volume.
VAN DER GRIFT'S WAREHOUSE 51
overbalanced by Stuyvesant's favors, and in 1656, being
appointed arbitrator with Captain Thomas Willet to dispose
of a claim made against the Director-General by one Richard
Lord, a merchant of Hartford, for damages for the non-per-
formance of a trading contract, he joined Captain Willet in
reporting in favor of a judgment against Stuyvesant for 200
pounds sterling.
As early as 1644, Captain Van der Grift is said to have
been in possession of the lot upon 't Water on which his
warehouse was afterwards erected, but he only received his
formal grant of the land on the 19th of July, 1649, at which
date there is reason to believe that the building was com-
pleted. There can be little doubt that it is this edifice that
is referred to in the historic " Vertoogh," or " Remonstrance,"
presented to the States-General by Adriaen van der Donck
and others, to call attention to the abuses prevailing in the
Colony of New Netherland, which document bears date
July 28, 1649: "Paulus Lenaertse hath but trifling wages,
and yet has built a better dwelling-house here than any other
person. How this is done is too deep for us, for though the
Director is aware of these things, he nevertheless observes
silence when Paulus Lenaertse begins to get excited, which
he would not suffer from any other person, and this gives
rise to unfavorable surmises." As a man of whom Stuyve-
sant stood in awe, the choleric Captain must have commanded
a high degree of respect in the town.
Of the nature of the business carried on at Captain Van der
Grift's warehouse we have not much information. It was,
however, for a considerable period the principal shipping
office of New Amsterdam at which intelligence was to be
had, and arrangements were to be made for freight and pas-
sage when vessels were "up for the Netherlands." As the
Captain kept up an active life, occasionally himself making
voyages, — in 1654 he was commissioned as commander of
the ship " Dolphin " for a voyage to the West Indies, — his
business at the water-side in New Amsterdam must have
been conducted by his agents, but who these were we do not
52 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
know. If Captain Van der Grift ever actually resided in this
house it was probably for no long period, for at an early date
he built a residence upon the North River, west of Broad-
way, where, in the Indian attack of 1655, he is said to have
been severely wounded by a blow from an axe, at the hands
of one of the savages.
After the surrender to the English in 1G64, Captain
Van der Grift was one of the irreconcilables, and in or about
the year 1671 he closed out his interests in New York, by
the sale of all his real estate to various parties, and returned
to the Netherlands. His storehouse on 't Water, above
referred to, occupied the site of the present building, No. 31
Pearl Street.
It was apparently a short time prior to the year 1649
that the Director-General and Council decided to build a
more spacious and substantial storehouse, or "pack-huys,"
for the West India Company at New Amsterdam, than it had
previously possessed. The building erected in pursuance of
this resolution stood next eastward from Captain Van der
Grift's warehouse, and was the middle one of the three tall
structures previously referred to as appearing upon the
Visscher and upon the Justus Danckers views of New Am-
sterdam. The edifice was probably of brick, and is without
doubt the one referred to in a communication written in
the year 1649, in which we find the economical Board of
Directors of the West India Company, at Amsterdam, cen-
suring the authorities of New Netherland "for building a
storehouse, or undertaking the same, one hundred feet long
and nineteen feet broad, without knowing precisely what
for." This structure was evidently used, in part, at the
last-mentioned date as a custom-house; for in "The Peti-
tion of the Commonalty " to the home authorities, made in
that year, speaking of importations into the Colony, "the
cargo," say the petitioners, "is discharged into the Com-
pany's warehouse, and there it proceeds so as to be a grief
and vexation to behold, for it is all measured anew, un-
THE "PACK-HUYS
53
packed, thrown about and counted, without either rule or
order; besides, the Company's servants bite sharp and carry
away."
When, in 1664, New Netherland was surrendered to the
English, the pack-huys was confiscated as being the property
of the West India Company, and the building became the
custom-house of the new administration, for which pur-
pose it was used until the middle of the following century,
when, having been negligently allowed by the colonial
authorities to fall into disrepair, it came to be considered
dangerous, and was presented as a nuisance by the Grand
Jury about the year 1750, soon after which it was ordered
to be demolished, the Custom-House having been in the
mean time removed to the western side of Broadway. The
site of this interesting building, the worn threshold of which
must have been trodden by nearly every man of prominence
in the business and political life of New Amsterdam and of
New York in the latter half of the seventeenth and in the
first half of the eighteenth century, was the westerly portion
of the present large tea warehouse, No. 33 Pearl Street.
The third, or easternmost of the three prominent houses
upon the Visscher and Danckers views of New Amsterdam,
referred to above, had been built before the year 1651, by
Augustyn Heermans, of whom a more extended notice will
be given hereafter, in connection with his residence in what
was called the Smits Vly. At an early date — certainly as
early as 1644, and in all probability for a number of years
before that time — Augustyn Heermans had been the agent
or factor at New Amsterdam of the mercantile firm of Peter
Gabry and Sons, of Amsterdam. No mention is made of the
site of the first trading house or store of Heermans, but it is
very likely to have been the same spot where afterwards,
about 1650, he erected a substantial warehouse, the descrip-
tion of which is still extant. The building was, so we are
told, twenty-eight feet broad and sixty-four feet long (about
twenty-six by fifty-nine English feet), " with a cellar under
54 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the whole." Its walls were two feet in thickness, and it was
" three royal stories high ; " that is, three full or high-ceiled
stories, not including the lofts under the tall-gabled roof. In
the rear it appears to have possessed an out-kitchen, fitting
it for a residence as well as for a storehouse. This spacious
building seems to have been in part used as a tobacco ware-
house, in which trade Heermans was largely interested, for in
a petition made by him, in 1658, for permission to make a
voyage to the Dutch and French West Indies, he describes
himself as "the first beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade."
The site of this building is at present covered by the easterly
portion of the warehouse, No. 33 Pearl Street, and by the
westerly portion of No. 35.
Heermans was also engaged in business adventures of a
different nature, for in 1646 we find him, with several other
citizens of New Amsterdam, partners in a small privateer
called "La Garce," which annoyed the Spaniards a good deal,
but which finally made an illegal capture which must have
entailed considerable loss upon her owners. It may have
been owing to this cause that, in 1651, Augustyn Heermans
had fallen into financial difficulties ; and upon the 17th of
July of that year, he made a conveyance of his warehouse on
't Water to Cornelis van Werckhoven, as curator, or trustee
of the estate of Peter Gabry, deceased, the head of the
Amsterdam firm of which Heermans was the factor. His
other creditors, however, began to press Heermans, and in
1652 he found himself obliged to leave New Amsterdam
temporarily, and to make an assignment of his property to
his neighbor, Captain Paulus Leendertsen van der Grift, and
to Allard Anthony. A settlement, however, was soon made
with the creditors, and on the 8th of May, 1653, we find the
latter executing an agreement to abide by the valuation
which should be placed by arbitrators upon the warehouse
which had been previously conveyed in trust for the Gabrys,
and which, as it would appear, the creditors claimed had
been [put in at a figure below its value. The arbitrators
accordingly reported that the building was worth 8500
SECRETARY VAN TIENHOVEN 55
guilders, or about $3400 of the present currency. No
further opposition appears to have been made by the cred-
itors, and Heermans was soon upon his feet again, finan-
cially. The warehouse remained in the possession of the
Gabrys till the English capture of New Amsterdam, in 1664,
when the building, like the pack-huys adjoining, was con-
fiscated on the ground that it belonged to the subjects of a
hostile foreign State. A few years afterwards we find it in
the occupation of Captain William Dyre, collector of the
port of New York. By the Danker and Sluyter view, of
1679, it would appear that prior to that date this building,
with the adjoining pack-huys, had been newly fronted, giving
the two structures the appearance of one edifice, of consider-
able size.
The two large modern warehouses, Nos. 33 and 35 Pearl
Street, occupy sites around which many interesting associa-
tions cluster. In addition to that portion of the buildings
upon the site of which stood the edifices already described,
the eastern portion of No. 35 Pearl Street was, in 1655, the
site of a dwelling-house of little less interest. Here might
have been seen daily, passing to and from this house at
the period named, or taking his ease upon fine days, at its
threshold, in the very rare intervals of his leisure, — for he
led a busy life, — a middle-aged man of corpulent habit
"with red and bloated visage and light hair." This was
Cornelis van Tienhoven, Secretary of the Council, more
particularly identified than any other individual with the
history of New Netherland during at least a score of the
earlier years of its existence. While little is known about
the younger years of this man, 1 we find that he early acquired
an influence in the government of New Netherland, which
he preserved under such dissimilar administrations as those
of Directors Van Twiller, Kieft, and Stuyvesant. This in-
fluence he managed to preserve too in spite of many rash
1 According to Valentine, he was book-keeper of wages for the West India
Company, as early as 1633.
56 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
and unfortunate schemes, for which he was in large measure
responsible, and in spite of the incessant attacks of his
enemies, who comprised a large part of the community. His
character has been drawn in the "Vertoogh," or "Remon-
strance of New Netherland," in 1649, by no friendly hand,
but in a manner which seems to be justified by the facts we
know of him. "He is," say the authors of this vigorous
paper, " crafty, subtle, intelligent, sharp-witted, — good gifts
when properly applied. . . . He is a great adept at dissimu-
lation, and even when laughing, intends to bite, and pro-
fesses the warmest friendship where he hates the deepest.
... In his words and acts he is loose, false, deceitful, and
given to lying ; prodigal of promises, and when it comes to
performance, there is nobody at home. . . . Now, if the
voice of the people be the voice of God, of this man hardly
any good can with truth be said, and no evil concealed." It
was Cornells van Tienhoven who shared with Kieft the
odium of the Indian War of 1643, as well as of the earlier
expedition against the Raritans which resulted in the destruc-
tion of the first colonists of Staten Island. Of his flagrant
immorality even the sanctimonious Stuyvesant had full
knowledge. During his sojourn in the Netherlands in
1650-51, while acting as Stuyvesant's agent to refute the
charges made against the colonial government, he almost
openly defied the States-General,1 yet he contrived to remain
in apparently undiminished authority at New Amsterdam,
defying and harassing his enemies as usual.
At the period of our survey, however, the Secretary's time
was growing short, and it was in June of the next year,
1656, that he appeared with apparently undiminished assur-
ance before the burgomasters of the town, and, announcing
that he had been dismissed from office, he requested that a
formal certificate might be given to him of his efficiency in
the office of schout, or sheriff, which he had also held. In
the fall of the same year he disappeared from New Amster-
dam; some articles of his attire found on the river shore
1 See post, page 119.
VAN TIENHOVEN'S FAMILY
57
induced the belief that he had committed suicide, while
many stoutly asserted that he had absconded to get out of
the reach of his numerous enemies. There seems to be,
however, no reliable evidence that he was ever heard of
afterwards; and there would appear to have been little
opportunity for a man of such prominence as the ex-Sec-
retary to get away from New Netherland without discovery
and to keep himself in complete concealment.
Van Tienhoven's residence on 't Water (which does not
appear upon the Visscher view of New Amsterdam of 1651
or 1652) had not been built by the Secretary himself, but
probably by one Jacob Haie, from whom Van Tienhoven
had bought it in the spring of 1653, the house appearing to
have been then recently erected. Next to it, upon the east,
lay a vacant lot composed of a part of the then closed
Church Lane, — originally a continuation of the Brugh
Steegh. This had been granted in the early part of 16-47,
upon the breaking up of the old church property here, to
Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt, who however did not build
upon it, but sold it to Jacob Varrevanger within a year or
two; and in 1655, the year of our survey, it was acquired by
Van Tienhoven, who seems to have built upon it before his
disappearance from New Netherland. The Secretary-, prior
to 1638, had married Rachel Vinje, the stepdaughter of Jan
Damen, one of the leading men of the Colony ; and after the
disappearance of her husband, she lived here with her young
children for a few years till her death in 1663. The chil-
dren, of whom Lucas, the eldest, was about fourteen years of
age at his mother's death, and his sister Jannetje was six,
appear to have been cared for by their uncle Pieter Stouten-
burgh,1 and after they had grown up and come into posses-
sion of the considerable landed estate left by their parents,2
1 He had married Aefje van Tienhoven, sister of the Secretary, in 1649.
2 Rachel van Tienhoven had inherited one-fourth part of the Damen farm,
lying between Wall Street and Maiden Lane, while Cornelis, her husband, besides
several parcels of land in the town proper, was the owner of the farm lying
between the modern Maiden Lane and Ann Street.
58 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Lucas van Tienhoven, who became a physician of promi-
nence, occupied for many years the former residence of his
father on 't Water, while his sister Jannetje, who had
married a person named John Smith, resided in the house
adjoining upon the east on the site of the present No. 37
Pearl Street.
The dingy warehouses of the present day, in the locality
at which we have now arrived, with their closed shutters,
give the impression that they are in a condition of perma-
nent slumber, only waking up at intervals to receive or to
discharge an occasional truck-load of merchandise, and then
relapsing into somnolence. There is little in the surround-
ings now to call up ecclesiastical associations, yet here, upon
the site of the warehouse, No. 39 Pearl Street,1 stood the
first church building erected between the Plymouth Colony
and Virginia (the churches of which settlements antedated
this by but very few years), and where Dominie Bogardus
preached to the ancestors of many of the principal New York
families. Not even a cheap memorial tablet marks the spot.
The church edifice, which was constructed of wood, in the
year 1633, was doubtless not built for architectural effect;
since critics speak of it, at the time of the building of the
new church within the fort, as "a mean barn."2 The waters
of the East River washed the shore a few rods in front of
the entrance to the church, from which, upon fine Sabbath
mornings, the congregation must have often looked across to
the white sand bluffs of the heights of Long Island, shining
in the sun, and crowned by unbroken forests which extended
to the horizon. At the west side of the building a narrow
lane or passage ran through from Brugh Straet (modern
1 And probably upon a few feet of the building No. 37.
2 The people generally, however, are stated to have been opposed to the build-
ing of the new church within the walls of the fort, and this measure is described
by contemporary writers as having been largely the work of Director Kieft him-
self, who may even then have had in contemplation his plan of exterminating
the neighboring Indians, and was therefore desirous of providing against future
contingencies.
THE OLD CHURCH AND PARSONAGE 59
Bridge Street) to the shore, while upon its east side, and
probably fronting the Brugh Straet, stood the modest parson-
age with the Dominie's stable near it, this latter structure
standing apparently upon the lane and in the rear of the
church. It was at this parsonage,1 in all probability, that the
historic wedding took place, in the fall of 1642, of Doctor
Hans Kiersted to Dominie Bogardus's eldest stepdaughter,
Sara Roelofse. Director-General Kieft, who was then on
good terms with the Dominie, was present, and had a plan
for getting a liberal subscription for the new church upon
this occasion. "The Director," say the authors of the
"Remonstrance of New Netherland," "thought this a good
time for his purpose, and set to work after the fourth or fifth
drink; and he himself setting a liberal example, let the
wedding guests sign whatever they were disposed to give
towards the church. Each then, with a light head, sub-
scribed away at a handsome rate, one competing with the
other, and although some heartily repented it when their
senses came back, they were obliged nevertheless to pay."
When the new church in the fort was sufficiently advanced
in building, so that religious services might be held within
it, and about the year 1643 or 1644, the old church building
became a sort of "lumber house" of the West India Com-
pany, where tobacco, furs, and other articles were stored and
prepared for shipment, and where wood was piled and sawed,
sometimes by prisoners serving out sentences. In 1647 the
Church Lane and the parsonage were sold, — the latter to one
Pieter Lourensen. Finally, in 1656, the Company decided
to sell the old church at auction, and upon such sale it was
purchased by Jacob van Couwenhoven, a trader and general
speculator, who soon transferred it to Isaac de Foreest; the
latter owned the building many years, and it appears to have
been generally used as a warehouse of some description, but
it was afterwards made a dwelling-house, and was for a long
1 The site of this parsonage would appear to have been the rear of the
modern building, No. 45 Pearl Street. There is here, for some reason, a break in
the consecutive numbering of the modern houses.
60 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
time the residence of Allan! Anthony or of his family; it
was standing as late as 1718. If, as seems to be the case, it
is the building prominently shown near the shore and east of
the pack-huys of the West India Company, in the Visscher
view of New Amsterdam, it would appear to have been a low
structure with not the slightest pretensions to ornamentation
of any description ; it was doubtless sufficiently spacious in
its ground-plan, but presents a rather "squatty" appearance,
and the term "barn," as applied to it, is not inapt.1
Beyond the church and the parsonage, as far as the ditch,
or "graft," in the present Broad Street, the ground was open
and ungranted at the time of our survey, but in the following
year 1656, the remainder of the ground embraced in the
present block between Bridge and Pearl streets was granted,
in four small parcels to different persons, who soon built upon
their lots here.
1 As to apparent defects occurring just at this point in the Justus Dauckers
view of New Amsterdam, see remarks in Appendix I., to this volume.
CHAPTER VII
ADAM R OE LA NT SEN, THE FIRST SCHOOLMASTER IN NEW
AMSTERDAM, AND HIS HOUSE ON STONE STREET.—
CAPTAIN WILLEM TOMASSEN
From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons,
might be heard in a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a beehive, interrupted
now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or
command ; or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged
some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge.
Irving: "Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
WE take our station again at the garden attached to
Philip Geraerdy's White Horse tavern, which has
been already described as having been upon the north side of
Stone Street near Whitehall. Here the proprietor, hoeing
his beans and cabbages and parsnips in the early summer
morning, has probabty often stopped to discuss the news of
the day with his neighbor, Adam Roelantsen, the first school-
master of New Amsterdam, over the fence of rough palisades
which divided their respective gardens. Adam Roelantsen
Groen — for that was the full name, of which he occasionally
made use — came over from the ancient little town of
Dockum, situated in Friesland, in the extreme north of the
Netherlands and within six or eight miles of the shore of the
North Sea, where it stood surrounded by rich but treeless and
monotonous meadows, and by the numerous salt-pans along
the river Ee.
Adam Roelantsen arrived from the Netherlands while still
a young man and as one of the earlier colonists ; he was born
about 1606, and was at New Amsterdam before the year 1633.
The Frisians seem frequently to possess an aptitude for the
exact sciences, particularly for mathematics, which renders
62 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
them valuable as schoolteachers, but as to Roelantsen's labors
in this capacity, very little is known. He could hardly have
taught many pupils at his earliest house, for it was very
small, having in all probability been one of the original log
and bark cottages of the settlement; it stood upon a mere
slip of land but little larger than the house itself, and which
lay between Geraerdy's garden and the Brouwer or Stone
Street, and was probably the remains of a larger plot enclosed
before the street was projected. To the eastward, on the
north side of Stone Street, Roelantsen had a garden of fair
extent, rather more than fifty by one hundred feet in area.
A curious fact, showing the condition of the rising village, is
that in 1641, Jan Damen's cattle, pasturing on the West
India Company's land above the present Beaver Street, leased
by Damen, broke out and made their way into this garden of
Roelantsen, — there being apparently at that time no enclosed
land lying between, — where they committed depredations for
which he was awarded damages in the sum of twenty-three
carolus guilders, — some eight or ten dollars of the present
currency.
Roelantsen possessed one trait which must have seriously
impaired his usefulness as an instructor: he seems to have
been fond of prying into his neighbor's private affairs ; and
he not only kept a sharp eye on their actions, but when he
discovered anything particularly racy, he retailed it out with
great unction. This, as early as the year 1638, had brought
out quite a crop of slander prosecutions, not only against
Roelantsen, but by him against some of his assailants. These
usually terminated, however, after the New Amsterdam
fashion, in which the parties, after accusing one another of
the most villanous actions, rushed to the court for redress,
and when the cause came on for hearing, — either because
they had no evidence to support or to defeat the charges, or
else for the purpose of saving the costs of the trial, — they
commonly retracted all that had been said on either side, and
gave each other clean, not to say complimentary, bills of
character, which were duly spread upon the minutes of the
ROELANTSEN, THE SCHOOLMASTER 63
court. Roelantsen, indeed, was not a popular man, and as early
as 1643 he had a rival at New Amsterdam in the person of Jan
Stevensen, another schoolmaster ; but as little is known of the
latter in that capacity as of Roelantsen himself. The proba-
bilities are, however, that Adam was forced to resort to other
means of eking out a livelihood for himself and for his young
family. Mr. Valentine says, from certain court proceedings
in 1638, that there is "some reason to suppose that the town
schoolmaster also took in washing." This was, in fact, a suit
by Roelantsen for the washing of defendant's linen, in which
the defence was that " the year is not yet elapsed." It evi-
dently referred to the business, still conducted to a consider-
able extent in Holland, of contracting for the washing for
various periods, for individuals or for families, the work being
carried on by employes of the contractor.
Affairs did not thrive with Adam Roelantsen, who seems to
have found himself considerably burdened with debts. Part
of these were no doubt incurred in building a new and larger
house for himself a little to the east of his old one, upon the
north side of Stone Street, in the spring of 1642. His origi-
nal dwelling, which stood just about where the open court of
the Produce Exchange now is, on Stone Street, was occupied
for a short time after the completion of the new one, by
negroes of the West India Company, but towards the end of
1642, he sold the materials of the old building to one Uldrich
Klein.
Prior to 1646, Roelantsen, taking with him his eldest son,
then a small boy, had departed for the Netherlands, upon
what business we are uninformed. During his absence his
wife Lyntie Martense died, leaving several small children
(the youngest of whom were only about four and two years
old respectively), with no one to look after them. Upon the
9th of March, 1646, the sad plight of the children was brought
to the attention of the members of the Council, who after due
deliberation adopted the somewhat ponderous resolution of
appointing four of the nearest neighbors — to wit : Philip
Geraerdy, Dr. Hans Kiersted, Jan Stevensen, the schoolmas-
64 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
ter, and Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt — as curators or
guardians, to look after the children " till the arrival of the
father or some news of him."
At last, about the month of July in the same year, Adam
made his appearance in the ship " St. Jacob " from Amster-
dam, but he did not come under auspicious circumstances.
He had first to settle with the authorities for removing some
of his goods from the public store before they were inspected ;
and after this he was sued for the board of himself and his
son during the voyage, by the owner of the vessel : he was
able, however, to defeat this latter claim by showing that the
skipper of the " St. Jacob " had promised him his passage " if
he would perform seaman's work on the vessel, and his son
said the prayers.*'
There may be some just grounds for suspicion that Adam
Roelantsen was preparing for a new marriage, for in the fall
of 1646, we find him contracting for new wainscoting and
other improvements for his house ; if this were the case, his
plans were seriously interfered with by an untoward occur-
rence in December of that year. He had about that time
offered a grievous insult to the wife of one of his neighbors,
and the matter, taken in connection with Adam's previous
doings, was brought to the notice of the Council ; after de-
liberation that body adjudged that he should be publicly
flogged, and banished from the Colony, as a nuisance. This
sentence, like many others of the Council, was largely in
terror em, for four days afterwards, or on the 17th of Decem-
ber, 1646, they entered a further order : " In consideration that
the aforesaid defendant has four small children, without
a mother, and a cold winter is approaching, the actual ban-
ishment of the above sentence is delayed by the Director-
General and Council until a more favorable opportunity,
when the defendant may leave the country." Roelantsen
remained in New Netherland, in fact, for at least three years
longer, but during the earlier portion of that period he seems
to have been regarded as a mere privileged prisoner, and per-
haps was such in a legal point of view. The carousing fiscal,
ROELANTSEN AND THE FISCAL 65
or prosecutor, Hendrick van Dyke, seems after a while to
have found Roelantsen a useful person to attach to himself as a
sort of servant or lackey ; and in that capacity he had placed
him, one evening in August, 1647, to keep watch before one of
the taverns in the town, within which the fiscal was engaged
in some parting festivities, in all probability, with some of
his friends who were just on the point of departing on the
fatal voyage of the " Princess." Just why Van Dyke needed
a sentinel does not appear, but it is a fair conjecture that he
feared the austerity of Director Stuy vesant, and was uncertain
of his standing in the new regime of that magistrate. At
any rate, the attractions of the tavern proved too strong for
Roelantsen. " Some time afterwards," says one of the party
present at the tavern upon this occasion, " said Roelantsen
came in, and the fiscal asked, 4 What are you doing here?
Why do you not watch at the door ? ' Said Roelantsen
answered there was nothing to watch. The fiscal, replying,
said, 1 You are my servant ; you must wait at the door,' and
at the same time struck said Roelantsen with the back of his
hand, and at the same time cried out, c Throw the blackguard
out of doors.' Thereupon the above-named Adam Roelantsen
was thrust out of doors." It may perhaps have been to quiet
the hubbub caused by this affair that in this same year we
find Roelantsen appointed provoost, or jailer. He remained
at New Amsterdam till the latter part of the year 1649 ; on
the 4th of December of that year, being then apparently on
the point of embarking for the West Indies, he executed a
letter of procuration to Jacob Tysen or Marritje Claes " to
have during his absence a fatherly and motherly care of his
children, who remain here with them." If he actually left New
Amsterdam at this time he must have found his way back,
for in 1653 he appears to have been a " wood sawyer " for
the Company, employed in its packing house, the old church
on Pearl Street. He seems to have sunk into the condition
of a drudge of the West India Company, but was still at his
old tricks, for he had an affray with one Stoffel Elsworth
about the time mentioned and received a severe beating from
5
66 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
him. His house and garden on Brouwer or Stone Street
had been taken into possession by one Claes Jansen Rust,
probably a mortgagee, before Roelantsen's departure in 1649,
for, in August of the same year, it had been sold by the cura-
tors of the estate of the former, who was then deceased, to
Captain Willem Tomassen, " Skipper, under God, of the
' Falconer,' " who held the premises at the period of our survey
in 1655.
The description of this building, which stood upon the eastern
portion of the site of the present Produce Exchange, has been
pretty clearly preserved to us. It was a clapboard structure, cov-
ered with a reed roof, and eighteen by thirty feet in size. Like
most of the buildings in the thickly settled districts, it stood
with its gable end to the street. At the front door was the usual
" portal " with its wooden seats. Outside of the frame a chim-
ney of squared timber was carried up. Within, the fireplace
was provided with the luxury of a mantelpiece, and we may
presume that the living room was ornamented with the " fifty-
one leaves of wainscot," for which Adam Roelantsen had con-
tracted a few years before. The house contained the usual
" bedstead " or permanent frame built in, for state occasions,
being somewhat of the nature of a bunk. It is perhaps a
little difficult to go back now, in imagination, to the time
when Adam Roelantsen and his family, upon the first mild
evenings in spring, could listen from this house to the chorus
of the "spring peepers" from Blommaert's Vly, along the
present Broad Street ; what time the air, perhaps, was heavy
with the smell of burning brush from Barent Dircksen's new
clearing, just north of Maiden Lane ; yet an unbroken succes-
sion of human life has, in fact, occupied this spot from such
period, through nearly nine generations.
As for Captain Willem Tomassen, he appears to have been
a resident of New Netherland prior to 1643, in which year he
leased from Coinelis Dircksen the then recently established
ferry of the latter to Long Island, together with a house, gar-
den, and some thirty odd acres of land at the foot of what is
now Fulton Street, in Brooklyn, but which was then a mere
CAPTAIN WILLEM TOMASSEN
67
track, winding np a wooded ravine to afford access to the scat-
tered clearings in the vicinity of Gowanus and of the Wall-
about. How long Captain Tomassen's connection with the
ferry lasted we do not know. He was a man of other affairs,
and in 1647 was skipper of the " Great Gerrit," trading to
Amsterdam. He seems to have been held in high estimation
by Director-General Stuyvesant, for soon after the arrival of
the latter to enter upon his administration at New Amsterdam,
he appointed, in May, 1647, Captain Tomassen " storekeeper to
watch over the company's effects," and also commander of the
company's ships and forces in the absence of the Director-Gen-
eral. At the time of this appointment, Captain Tomassen gave
up the command of his vessel ; but two years later, at the time of
his purchase of the Roelantsen house, we find him in command of
another ship, the " Valckemer," or " Falconer," not a very large
vessel, as in 1650, when he brought over one hundred and forty
passengers on one of his trips from the Netherlands, we are
informed that he had to leave many behind who were anxious to
take passage with him, but for whom there was no room on
board. In the house which we have described lie resided for
several years, but died within a year or two of the period of our
survey. He was fond of using the latinized form of Gulielmus
for his name, which was corrupted by his Dutch neighbors into
" Ielmer," by which appellation he occasionally appears upon
the old records.
CHAPTER VIII
SURGEON VAN DER BOGAERDT AND HIS HOUSE. — HIS
TRAGICAL DEATH. — THE PRIVATEER "LA GARCE" AND
HER PRIZES. — ISAAC DE FOREEST
THERE were sinister memories connected with the house
on the north side of Stone Street, next to that of Captain
Tomassen, as we proceed eastward. At the period of our
survey, in 1655, it was owned and occupied by Isaac de
Foreest, a man of prominence in the town, but its first owner
and builder was Harmanus Meyndertsen van der Bogaerdt, for
several years the surgeon of the West India Company at New
Amsterdam.
Few men commenced life in New Netherland under more
favorable auspices than did Surgeon Van der Bogaerdt. Com-
ing over to the colony in the ship " Eendracht " from Amster-
dam in 1630, when he could have been hardly more than a
medical student, he seems to have acquired and to have main-
tained the confidence of the company's superior officers for a
long series of years. He appears, indeed, to have had an intimate
acquaintance with many of the brawls and scandals that took
place in the town, but probably this was only in the line of
his professional duties. The Director and Council seem to
have been disposed to advance Van der Bogaerdt in lines not
connected with his profession, and in 1639 he made a voyage
to the West Indies as supercargo of the ship " Canary Bird."
As to his ancestry in the Netherlands, or as to the particular
place from which he came, we have no definite information.
From his will, made in 1638, just prior to his voyage to the
West Indies above referred to, we learn that his wife, Jelisje,
was the daughter of one Claes Jansen, from Zierikzee, in Zea-
THE PRIVATEER "LA GARCE " 69
land, an ancient little town rich with its memories of desperate
struggles with the Spaniards ; the fame of its citizen-soldier,
Lieve Heere, who precipitated himself into the sea voluntarily,
lest a despatch winch he was carrying through the lines of
the Spanish besiegers should fall into their hands, has been
the theme of poets in other tongues besides that of the
Dutch.
Surgeon Van der Bogaerdt appears to have been related,
either personally or on the side of his wife, to Claes Cornelissen
Swits, whose tragical death, upon his solitary bouwery, at the
hands of an Indian in 1642, was one of the remote causes
which led up to Kieft's massacre of the Indians in the follow-
ing year, and to the ruinous struggle which succeeded it.
About the beginning of the summer of 1642, we find the
surgeon selling to two Englishmen, James Smith and William
Brown, his interest as "co-heir" in the plantation of the mur-
dered man. At about the same time he executed a power of
attorney to one of his brothers-in-law in the Netherlands to
collect certain rents for him in the province of Zealand ; but
whether his interest in these arose in the same manner,
by reason of the death of Claes Cornelissen, we have no
information.
As early as 1645, Surgeon Van der Bogaerdt appears to
have been living on " the road," as it was then often called,
the name Brouwer Straet not being as yet in much use ; here
he had a plot of between fifty and sixty feet front, for which he
did not obtain his " ground-brief " till the early part of 1647.
His residence here must have been somewhat interrupted, how-
ever, for in 1646 he had obtained the important appointment
of commissary at Fort Orange, or Albany. The surgeon ap-
pears to have been a man who was somewhat well to do, for
in the early part of 1647, he had purchased a share in the
privateering frigate "La Garce," to which a previous allu-
sion has been made. This vessel, under the command of
Captain Blauveldt, a very active and enterprising officer, had
become famous at New Amsterdam (where she paid frequent
visits) as early as 1644, when Captain Blauveldt captured
70 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
after a severe conflict, and brought into port, two Spanish
barks. " La Garce " continued assiduously for several years
to hunt Spanish prizes, but unfortunately Captain Blauveldt
was so busy that he apparently had no time to go on shore
occasionally to get information as to whether the war was
still continuing between the United Netherlands, whose com-
mission he carried, and the government of Spain. As a matter
of fact, the long struggle between those countries was termi-
nated by a treaty of peace in 1647, in which the independence
of the Netherlands was at last fully acknowledged ; though
the great Treaty of Westphalia, which definitively restored
peace to the larger portion of Europe, was not signed until
the following year. In view of these events, the people of
New Amsterdam were astounded to see, in the spring of 1649,
about a year and a half after the treaty of peace, Captain
Blauveldt and " La Garce " come sailing proudly up the har-
bor, bringing with him as a prize the Spanish bark " Tabasco,"
which he had captured in the river of the same name, empty-
ing into the southern part of the Gulf of Mexico. Captain
Blauveldt could not understand the scruples that were raised
about the lawfulness of his capture. He said if there had
been a treaty of peace with Spain, he had never heard of it.
Besides that, he said, the Spaniard had never heard of it
either, and when he summoned her to surrender, had answered
by firing upon him. Moreover, he insisted, " La Garce,"
though sailing under Dutch colors and owned by Dutch pro-
prietors, was really a French-built vessel, and France and
Spain were still at war. The captain's arguments were not
convincing, however, except possibly to the owners of "La
Garce." The cause dragged along in the prize courts upon
one technicality and another for a number of years, and the
" Tabasco " was at last decided not to have been lawful prize.
Long before this happened, however, one of the owners, Sur-
geon Van der Bogaerdt, had ceased to have any interest in
"La Garce" and her prizes. At Albany, in the winter of
1647-48, he was accused of a criminal offence of grave nature.
He took refuge in the Mohawk Country among the Indians,
DEATH OF SURGEON VAN DER BOGAERDT 71
with whom he had become well acquainted in the course of
his official business at Albany, and when a party was sent by
the magistrates to arrest him he made a determined resistance.
In the course of the fray, the Indian cabin, in which he had
fortified himself, which seems to have been a building of some
size and importance, was set on fire, either accidentally or
designedly, and Harmanus van der Bogaerdt perished in the
flames. This affair made a great sensation in New Amster-
dam, where his wife would seem to have been living at the
time. The Indians demanded to be reimbursed for the de-
struction of their building, and in Februaiy, 1648, the
Director-General and Council ordered a part of Van der
Bogaerdt's garden, upon Stone Street in New Amsterdam, to
be sold for the purpose of indemnifying the Indians. The
part sold seems to be the easternmost portion of the exten-
sive site of the Produce Exchange.
Van der Bogaerdt's widow married within a few months after
his decease one Jean Labatie, or Labbate, as the Dutch called
him, a person of French extraction, who was at the time
master carpenter of the West India Company in New Amster-
dam. They appear to have remained in possession of the
surgeon's house on Stone Street (which occupied, it would
seem, a portion of the site of the building No. 11 Stone
Street, together with a few feet of that of the Produce Ex-
change) till the latter part of 1652, when they sold it to Isaac
de Foreest. They had also some claim to the adjoining gar-
den, previously ordered to be sold by the Council, or had
themselves redeemed it, for in 1654 they sold out their inter-
est in that parcel to one Paulus Schrick. Labatie afterwards
removed to a farm near Albany, and later became one of the
first settlers at Schenectady.
Isaac de Foreest and his elder brother Hendrick occupy a
prominent place in the early history of New Netherland, as
having been the pioneers of the settlement of Harlem. They
were both young men when they came over from Leyden to
New Amsterdam in 1636, — Isaac only about twenty years of
age, and his brother Hendrick, though a married man, not
72 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
much older. From the rough, forest-clad hills, seamed with
deep ravines, a part of which now occupy the north end of
the Central Park, these two brothers, as they explored the
island of the Mannhatoes, soon after their arrival, must have
seen, as they looked to the northward, toward the wide salt-water
estuary which we now know as Harlem River, a level expanse
of some seven or eight hundred acres in area, broken only by
one or two isolated rocky eminences crowned with trees.
Through the midst of this ran a small fresh-water stream, and
there is little doubt that portions of the plain had been long
cleared and cultivated by the Indians. Here Hendrick de
Foreest selected a tract of about two hundred acres, lying
between the heights and the little stream flowing through the
flats, and here, not very far from the present Harlem Lake in
the Central Park, he commenced the erection of the first
house of European settlers upon the north end of Manhattan
island. Isaac de Foreest was probably an assistant of his
brother in his early operations, but Hendrick soon dying, his
widow married again, and the bouwery passed into the hands
of strangers. Isaac de Foreest therefore sought to establish
a new plantation for himself, and he secured about one hun-
dred acres of ground, extending in a long, narrow strip for
nearly a mile from about the present Fifth Avenue and One
Hundred and Twelfth Street to the river shore in the neigh-
borhood of First Avenue and One Hundred and Twenty -sixth
Street. It was near the latter spot that in 1641 he had a
dwelling and a large tobacco-house built by two English car-
penters. He obtained a ground-brief or patent for this land
in 1647. It had probably been devastated by the Indians in
1643, as most of the outlying plantations were, and whether
De Foreest kept up his buildings there we do not know. In
1650 he sold the farm to Willem Beeckman ; it was selected
for the site of the village of Harlem, and Isaac de Foreest's
lane, or cart-path, upon the east side of his farm, became the
main street of the new settlement.
De Foreest himself, for some time before the last-mentioned
date, had been dwelling upon the Winckel Straet in New
ISAAC DE FOREEST, THE BREWER 73
Amsterdam, where he owned the house next to that of Domi-
nie Bogardus, to which previous reference has been made, in
these sketches. Soon after his purchase of Surgeon Van der
Bogaerdt's house on Stone Street, he sold his former dwelling-
house upon the Winckel Straet, and continued to make the
Stone Street house his residence during most of the remainder
of his life. As early as 1653, De Foreest was known as a
successful brewer in New Amsterdam, and two or three years
later he petitioned the Council for permission to contract for
all the beer that one of his rivals in business could brew, in
order to save the latter from pecuniary embarrassment. As
to his place of business in the earlier years we are not in-
formed, but as early as 1660 his large brewery stood upon the
north side of the Prinsen Straet, now called Beaver Street, a
short distance west of the modern William Street. De For-
eest's brewing operations did not prevent his being engaged
to some extent in public business, and in 1656 he was ap-
pointed " Master of the Weigh House." This building, in-
tended for the weighing, measuring, gauging, etc., of goods
had been ordered to be constructed in 1653, and stood near
the little dock upon Schreyers Hoek. It was afterwards re-
moved to a spot upon the south side of Pearl Street, at the
head of another small dock on the line of the present Moore
Street, built about 1659.
About the time of the surrender of New Amsterdam to the
English in 1664, Isaac de Foreest incurred considerable cen-
sure from a part of his fellow-citizens. It seems that while
the English vessels were lying in the harbor before New
Amsterdam, with their force as yet unknown, De Foreest was
taken prisoner, apparently by an English detachment which
had landed upon Long Island and which encountered him at
that place. He was taken to the ships, but was soon released,
and sent back to New Amsterdam; there he reported that
Colonel Nicoll had a force of about eight hundred English
soldiers ready to make a landing. After the surrender, it was
discovered (according to the representations made by the
West India Company to the States-General) that the English
74 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
only had a few more than two hundred men, — a force hardly
equal in number to the garrison. There was great indignation
among the soldiers of the garrison and the more patriotic
Dutch citizens, and some talk of repudiating Stuyvesant's
articles of surrender. The Director-General's long course of
petty tyranny, however, had so alienated the mass of the
citizens that they seem to have looked upon the arrival of
the English as a positive relief ; they would do nothing,
and the others had to swallow their indignation as best they
could.
CHAPTER IX
THE VAN CORTLANDT HOMESTEAD. — CATHERINE VAN
CORTLANDT AND HER CHURCH AT SLEEPY HOLLOW.—
VAN COUWENHOVENS HOUSES ON STONE STREET —
PIETE HARTGERS, THE WAMPUM COMMISSIONER
T TPON the north side of Stone Street there stand two
unpretending brick warehouses of the style of half a
century ago. Between their high blank walls is a narrow
lane, or passageway, which seems to lead to nowhere in par-
ticular, and which is closed to the street by a curious port-
cullis arrangement of iron bars. The ground covered by
these buildings, Nos. 13 and 15 Stone Street, and by the
passageway, together with a small additional strip upon the
west, forms a spot which ought to be of some interest to a
good many of the citizens of New York, for it is the ances-
tral site of one of their oldest families, the Van Cortlandts.
From the small town of Wyck te Durstadt, a few miles
southeast of Utrecht, Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt came
over to New Amsterdam in 1637 as a soldier in the service
of the West India Company. Director- General Kieft, who
came to the Colony in the year succeeding Van Cortlandt's
arrival, seems to have taken a fancy to the young soldier,
and transferred him from the military to the civil service,
giving him the appointment of commissary, or superin-
tendent of cargoes at the port. The direct compensation of
this office was not very lucrative, however, for in 1641, his
salary was raised to 30 guilders, or about $12 per month; the
probabilities are that his services in the office to which he
was thus appointed were only needed at the comparatively
infrequent intervals of the arrival or departure of a vessel in
port. At any rate, we find him at about this period with a
76 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
" plantation" on his hands near where the village of Green-
wich was subsequently located, — the present Ninth Ward
of the city. Probably enough, this came to him through a
mortgage from one Thomas Betts, or Bescher, as he is some-
times called, who seems to have occupied it for a time. This
man is said to have been an Englishman, and appears to have
succumbed about this time to the twofold misfortunes of an
encumbered farm and a worthless wife. In the spring of
1641, Van Cortlandt leased the plantation to three persons
who seem to have been Englishmen, for the rental of three
hundred pounds of tobacco per year. More than by his
farming investments, however, Van Cortlandt' s prospects
were improved by his marriage in 1642 to Anneken, sister of
Govert Loockermans, the leading merchant and Indian
trader of the Colony at that time. Soon thereafter he re-
ceived from Director Kieft the somewhat important appoint-
ment of keeper of the public store, and thenceforwards his
advancement in wealth and influence was quite rapid.
Van Cortlandt was living upon "the road," or Stone Street,
as early as 1646, and had obtained his deed or ground-brief
for the land in the preceding year. In addition to his ap-
pointments under the West India Company, he was the
agent for the ex-Director Van Twiller, who, upon his return
to the Netherlands in about the year 1638, had retained
quite extensive landed interests in the Colony. Van Cort-
landt also took a prominent part in the affairs of the church
at New Amsterdam, of which he was a deacon ; and mention
has already been made, in a preceding chapter of this work,
how Director- General Kieft induced him to bring a suit for
slander against Dominie Bogardus, which suit, however, was
afterwards settled amicably between the parties. Following
this affair there seems to have been some diminution of Van
Cortlandt's influence with the officers of government at New
Amsterdam; he was certainly out of his office of keeper of
the stores as early as the spring of 1647, and in that same
year he was chosen by the popular party of New Amsterdam
as one of the representative "Nine Men," who afterwards
OLOFF VAN CORTLANDT
77
drew up the historic "Remonstrance" to the States-General
against the misrule of the West India Company and its
officers in New Netherland. Van Cortlandt signed this docu-
ment with the remarkable statement appended to his signa-
ture that it was "under protest." Just what he meant by
this is not entirely plain, but it appears to have been a sort of
"hedging" device. The Secretary Van Tienhoven, who
went over to the Netherlands for the purpose of answering
the " Remonstrance," on behalf of the colonial authorities, did
not fail to vilify, after his usual fashion, Van Cortlandt for
his ambiguous conduct: "He has profited by the Company's
service," said the Secretary, "and is endeavoring to give his
benefactor the pay of the world, — that is, evil for good."
Politics being unsatisfactory, Oloff van Cortlandt now
appears to have given his attention more particularly to
private business, and in 1648, according to Valentine, he
became a brewer. No reference to the site of his brewery is
found in the Dutch land records. Many years afterwards,
when the Van Cortlandts had acquired much property in
the Marketfield Lane, adjoining the rear of their original
grant upon Stone Street, their breweries and appurtenances
are referred to as large buildings apparently occupying sites
in the interior of the block. The lane, or passageway, pre-
viously spoken of may, indeed, have been the original ap-
proach to these structures from Stone Street. As to Van
Cortlandt's house, the records seem to be equally silent.
Muniments of the family may possibly be in existence which
could throw light upon these points, but one or two so-called
descriptions of the ancient buildings which have heretofore
appeared in print would appear to be entirely fanciful.
Here, then, Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt spent many of
the closing years of his life. If he sometimes remembered
the village of his last abode in the Netherlands and the
waters of the Rhine flowing silently by it through the old
Lech channel which Civilis and the Batavians had excavated
more than fifteen centuries before ; if he called to mind the
surrounding lowlands, yellow with the wheat harvest; and
78 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the Amersfoort Hills beyond, — quite mountains to the
Netherlander, — where white fields of buckwheat checkered
the purple of the heaths and the green of the woodlands, —
he never allowed these memories to call him back to the old
country, though he early acquired an ample competence for
his day. He remained quietly in New Amsterdam, holding
the office of Burgomaster of the city for ten years, from 1655
to 1665, and when the English made their descent upon New
Amsterdam in 1664, Director-General Stuyvesant appointed
him one of the commissioners to negotiate the surrender to
the English. After his death in 1683, members of his family
long retained this property or a portion of it, but it event-
ually passed out of their hands. The "brick dwelling-house,
kitchen, brew-house, malt-house, mill-house, horse-mill, out-
houses, storehouses, and stables," which stood here in the
next century, have all disappeared, but an edifice erected by
Oloff van Cortlandt's daughter Catherine, who was a child
of two or three years of age at the time of our survey, in
1655, has been more enduring. The little church of gray
stone, in the building of which in 1699 she took such a lively
interest, still stands, much as of old, upon the Albany post-
road, near the site of the upper manor-house of her husband
Frederick Phillipse, north of Tarrytown. The ancient road,
somewhat widened since Catherine van Cortlandt's day, still
winds around the shady knoll upon which her church stands,
and climbs the hill beyond ; but the tenants of the manor, the
slaves of the Phillipses, and the straggling Indian hunters
who frequented it in her time have long since vanished from
memory. The few slabs of brown stone scattered here and
there around the church, when she passed among them, —
" With slow feet, treading reverently
The graveyard's springing grass," —
have expanded, in the course of two centuries, to almost
a "city of the dead;" but at the foot of the knoll, the
Pocantico, enriched with legendary charms by the genius of
Washington Irving, flows from out its woody solitudes, as
THE VAN CORTLANDT FAMILY
79
it did when the foundress of the church looked down upon
it, — of whom, turning to the list of members in the records
of this ancient Dutch church, we read : —
" First and before all, the right honorable, God-fearing, very wise and
prudent my lady Catharine Phillipse, widow of the lord Frederick Phil-
lipse of blessed memory, who has promoted service here in the highest
praiseworthy manner."
Oloff van Cortlandt's descendants were extensive land-
holders, and, either directly or by marriage, they controlled
at one time all the land along the east side of the Hudson
River, from the highlands above the modern Peekskill to
the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, a distance of about thirty miles,
and extending several miles back into the country. Their
name is perpetuated in that of the town of Cortlandt in
Westchester County, and in Courtlandt Street and the Van
Cortlandt Park in the City of New York.
The interval upon the north side of Stone Street between
the Van Cortlandt house and the present Broad Street is now
occupied by buildings fronting upon the latter street, but it
was not so occupied originally. In the spring of 1645, Peter
Wolphertsen van Couwenhoven, one of several members of
a family who came from Amersfoort, only a few miles away
from Oloff van Cortlandt's last dwelling-place in the Nether-
lands, obtained a grant from Director Kieft of a plot of
ground, nearly fifty by one hundred and twenty-five feet in
area, at the corner of Stone Street and the present Broad
Street, the latter being at this point, and at the time men-
tioned, a mere narrow road or lane about twenty-five or thirty
feet in width, and with an artificial ditch or channel skirting
its east side. Here Van Couwenhoven built near the corner
of the streets a modest house — one story and a garret only
— which in the next year, 1646, he sold to Arnoldus van
Hardenbergh. He then immediately acquired from the
Director-General the grant of another parcel of about the
same size, lying between the first and Van Cortlandt's gar-
den, and proceeded to build another house here. This he
held for several years, until 1652, when he sold it to Pieter
80 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Hartgers, who was the owner at the period of our survey.
Hartgers, who had married one of the step-daughters of
Dominie Bogardus, was engaged much of his time in trading
with the Indians, and occupied this house very irregularly.
Finally, he appears to have taken up his residence in Fort
Orange, or Albany, where he received grants of land, and
where he was one of the magistrates in 1658. He acquired
the reputation of a great expert as to the values of the
Indian wampum, or shell money, and was appointed in 1659
a commissioner at Albany to estimate the same. His inti-
mate acquaintance with the Indians led him to make long
expeditions into the forests to drum up trade with them, a
course of business which excited great jealousy among his
less enterprising rivals. He retained the Stone Street house,
hut whether as a storehouse in his business, or in the occu-
pation of tenants is not known. At the time of the sur-
render to the English in 1661, Hartgers became obnoxious
to the new government from some cause or other, — possibly
from a refusal to take the oath of allegiance, — and his prop-
erty was confiscated. A curious circumstance, showing the
scarcity of money in the Colony, is that so late as 1659 this
house was the subject of a mortgage to secure " three hun-
dred and thirteen whole beaver-skins."
As for the corner plot mentioned above, after its sale in
1646 to Arnoldus van Hardenbergh for 1600 guilders, or
about $640 of the present currency, it appears to have be-
come encumbered with debts of its owner to one Hendrick
Scharf, of Amsterdam, and an arrangement was effected in
the year 1652 by which the house and garden was turned
over to the brother of Arnoldus, Johannes Hardenbergh,
who was at that time a merchant of Amsterdam. He was
the owner of this property at the time of our survey, but it
is not certain whether he ever actually resided here. He
died before the year 1659, in which year the place was sold
by the curators of his estate, and soon after this date the
garden was sold off in small lots fronting upon the Graft,
or Broad Street.
^ i%w of Brouwer Straet and
Hoogh Struct in New
Amsterdam
from Fort Amsterdam to the Stadt Huys
A.D. 1655
Compiled from the Dutch and
English Records by
J. H. INNES
NOTE— Conjectural sites, or those which have not been
the subjects of full examination, appear in dotted lines.
R efe rences:
Site of original house of Adam Roelantsen.
" House of the Fiscal."
Brewery of the West India Company.
Site of fan Couwen/iot/en's Brewery, 1658.
Site of later Melyn House.
CHAPTER X
THE "DITCH," OR GRAFT. — TEUN1S CRAIE AND HIS
HOUSES ON THE DITCH. — THE JEWS IN NEW AMSTER-
DAM.— SOLOMON LA CHAIR, THE NOTARY, AND HIS
TAVERN— THE BANISHMENT OF MICH IE L PICQUET
Ein Jahrtausend sclion und lauger
Dulden wir uns briiderlich ;
Du, du duldest, dass ich atrae,
Dass du rasest, dulde ich.
Jetzt wird unsre Freundschaft fester,
Und noch t'aglich nimmt sie zu ;
Denn ich selbst begann zu rasen
Und ich werde fast wie du !
Heine: "An Edom."
IT required some education in the ways of the Nether-
landers to render the Graft, or the modern Broad Street,
at which we have now arrived, a very desirable place of resi-
dence in the year 1655. The bog or morass towards the
head of the present street was known as Blommaert's, and
afterwards as the Company's Vly, in the earlier days of
the settlement, and had long been an eyesore to the officers
of the Company. As early as 1638 it appears that measures
to drain it were in contemplation ; and when Director Kief t
leased the land north of the present Beaver Street to Jan
Damen, in the spring of that year, the curious reservation
was made that " in case the Company think proper to plant
vineyards or gardens in the Vly, the lessee shall permit the
same." The natural outlet of this swamp was a small fresh-
water run which emptied into the East River near the inter-
section of Broad with the present Pearl Street, just south of
which last-named street was the original shore line. Before
6
82 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
1643, an artificial channel or ditch had been constructed to
carry off the waters of the swamp: this was only a few feet
in width, and was carried along the middle of the present
Broad Street ; upon its west side there was left a roadway of
twenty-five or thirty feet in width extending from the shore
to the present Beaver Street, but upon its east side no such
roadway appears to have been originally in contemplation,
for the first grants of land here came in several instances
quite to the ditch and consequently infringed upon the
eastern half of the present Broad Street. This was the con-
dition of the Graft at the period of our survey, but a little
later, larger views prevailed with the Director and Council,
and in 1657-59, arrangements were made with the land-
holders on the east side of the Graft; a strip corresponding
in size with that upon the west of the ditch was added to the
street, thus bringing it to its present width, and the ditch
was widened and deepened so as to form a canal extending
nearly to Beaver Street, through which canal the tide ebbed
and flowed. To protect the sides of this canal, it became
necessary to sheathe it with planks, and this was done by the
public authorities at considerable expense, and to the great
dissatisfaction of the property owners along it, who made
such determined opposition to the collection of the assess-
ments laid upon them, that the West India Company was
fain to contribute nearly half of the cost of the work in order
to prevent public disturbances.
Low-lying and damp as the " Ditch Street " must have been
before the construction of the canal in 1657, it doubtless
possessed attractions for Teunis Craie, who obtained from
the Director and Council, in April, 1647, a ground-brief for
a parcel of land at the southwesterly corner of the present
Stone and Broad streets, being in area about thirty-seven
feet front on the former street and fifty-five feet on the
latter.
Craie, who had come from Venlo, a small border town
upon the Meuse River in Upper Gelderland, must have been
among the earlier emigrants, for he had established himself
TEUNIS CRAIE
83
in New Amsterdam as early as 1639, in which year, follow-
ing the curious custom of the colonists and of the West
India Company, he had hired, or rather leased for six years,
as the legal instrument expresses it, two milch cows, im-
ported from the Netherlands by the Company. The rent
under this singular contract was to be fifty pounds of butter
annually, and the risk of death of the cattle, and the ultimate
increase of the same, were to be shared in common by Craie
and the Company. In all probability he was at this time
located upon some clearing outside of the village,1 for in the
winter of 1642-43, just before the Indian war broke out, we
find him making a contract with one Walter Davel to put
a post-and-five-rail fence around his plantation. Like most
of the farmers of Manhattan Island at that period, however,
his plantation seems to have suffered devastation at the
hands of the Indians in the war which followed Kieft's cruel
and foolhardy outrages upon the latter in the early part of
1643. Driven to the village for security, we find Craie
looking about for an abode there in the following summer.
It was no time for building operations, but he found a small
house which seems to have been in a somewhat dilapidated
condition, and which stood upon the road along "The Ditch,"
at the northwest corner of the present Bridge and Broad
streets. It was in all probability the first house built along
the line of the latter street, and had been originally acquired
by Abraham Ryken (the ancestor of the Rikers of later days),
in company with one Jan Pietersen from Amsterdam. These
persons had sold the house in the spring of 1643 to Michiel
Picquet, a Frenchman from the ancient city of Rouen in
Normandy. Picquet, who had a plantation on Long Island,
did not purpose to occupy this small house himself, and in
August, 1643, Teunis Craie, searching for a habitation at
1 This clearing appears to have occupied a portion of the tract lying along the
East River, hetween the so-called " Great Bouwery " of the West India Company
(afterwards granted to Director-General Stuyvesant) and Deutel or " Turtle "
Bay ; — or speaking in a general way, between the modern Twenty-first and
Forty-fifth streets. This tract passed through many vicissitudes in the earlier
years of the Colony.
84 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the village, was able to hire the house of its owner at the
yearly rental of 40 guilders, or about $16; the rent was
certainly not exorbitant, but as its owner had only paid 150
guilders, or about $60, for the premises, it gave him fair
returns for his investment. In addition Craie agreed "to
plaster and make the house tight once," and to enclose a
yard in the rear "to lay wood in." Even this humble little
cottage near the fort was looked upon in the troubled condi-
tion of the times as a place of refuge. The owner stipulates
in his lease to Craie that "if in consequence of enemies,
Indians, or other inconveniences, necessity require Michael
Picquet to lodge in said house with his family and baggage,
he may do so without deduction of rent.1'
Here, then, Teunis Craie apparently resided until he
acquired the adjoining lot to the north, already spoken of,
and built a house for himself in or about the year 1647. His
house, which stood upon the corner of Stone Street, faced
"The Ditch," or Broad Street with its gabled front, and the
capacious Dutch oven in its rear about filled up the short lot.
Just south of the latter appendage, and likewise upon the
rear of his lot, stood his well, — a famous one in the neigh-
borhood. To it, and along the south side of his house,
extended a path, which subsequently, when in the course of
a few years he had built another house upon the south-
ern portion of his ground, and also fronting Broad Street,
became a gated alleyway between the two houses, in which
the formidable " drip " of the steep Dutch roofs produced a
miniature cascade whenever a hard rain fell.
The small house of Teunis Craie upon " The Ditch " pos-
sesses some interest as having been the spot upon which the
Jews first attempted to establish themselves in the rising
village of New Amsterdam. The Portuguese Jews — so-
called — had for a considerable period been numerous and
influential in Amsterdam, where about twenty years after
the period of our survey (or in 1674), they built the great
synagogue, massive and imposing in its simplicity, and
standing upon a commodious square, bounded on two sides
THE JEWS IN NEW AMSTERDAM
85
by broad canals, the Muyder Graft and the Nieuwe Heere
Graft, — one of the choicest locations in the city, from which
it overlooked, across the latter canal, the greenhouses and trim
alder hedges and beds of rare plants of the Hortus Medic us,
the celebrated Botanical Garden of Amsterdam. This divi-
sion of the Jews of Amsterdam known as the Portuguese,
embraced, however, many of other nationalities, particularly
French and Italians. They formed the aristocracy of the
sect, and were moreover divided by differences of dogma
from their much humbler brethren, whose modest place of
worship stood at no great distance from them across the
Muyder Graft, and bore the formidable appellation of the
Hoogduytsse Joode Kerk, signifying, however, nothing more
than the High Dutch Jewish Church, whose congregation, in
addition to the High Dutch, or Germans, embraced also the
Polish and Silesian Jews ; they had few affiliations with the
Portuguese.
In so far as the Jews were merchants and capitalists, their
presence was by no means unwelcome in the metropolis and
larger cities of the Netherlands, where every nerve was
strained to extend the commercial influence of the country ;
but in the colonies, largely composed of the poorer classes of
emigrants, and where the competition of the Jewish traders
was dreaded by the small shopkeepers, they were looked
upon with much less favor; consequently, in November,
1655, when Asher Levy, a butcher by trade, who afterwards
became a citizen of prominence, and who was one of the
pioneers of the Jews in New Amsterdam, petitioned the
Council that he might be permitted to mount guard with
the other burghers (during the Indian troubles of that year),
in place of paying a commutation tax levied upon him as a
stranger, the privilege was not only refused by Stuyvesant
and his Council, but the insulting comment was minuted
upon his petition, that "if the petitioner consider himself
aggrieved, he may go elsewhere."1
1 The first Jews to arrive in New Amsterdam came in the French bark
"St. Charles," in the summer of 1654. They were brought by Jacques de la
86 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
It was about this time that Craie, possibly disturbed by the
then threatening condition of affairs in the Colony, offered
at public auction the southernmost of his houses on "The
Ditch," or the present Broad Street. It was struck down
to one Salvador d'Andradi, whose name indicates that he
was one of the Portuguese Jews; the purchaser immediately
made an application to the Council with the request that he
might be permitted to take and register his deed for the
house ; permission, however, was refused by that body.1 Craie
now petitioned the Council to take, by virtue of its right of
pre-emption, the property off his hands at the figure bid for
it at public sale, or otherwise to allow him to give his deed
to the Jewish purchaser, but this was likewise refused by
the Council. Craie was persistent in the matter, and on the
14th of March, 1656, having a few days before sold the
house to Pieter Schabanck and Gysbert van Imbroeck, he
again applied to the Council, alleging that he was then
about to sail for the Fatherland, that he had been obliged
to dispose of his house for a less sum than D'Andradi had
offered at the auction sale a few months before, and request-
Motte, the master of the vessel, from the harbor of Bahia in Brazil. They
numbered, according to a statement made by one of them, Solomon Pieters,
" twenty-three souls, big and little," but as to what brought this colony from the
Brazils we have no information. A considerable sum remained due to the
master of the " St. Charles " for their board and passage, and as the principal
men among them had signed an agreement whereby they became jointly and
severally liable for the whole amount, very rigorous proceedings were taken
against them. An auction sale was held of their goods, and the proceeds being
insufficient to discharge the indebtedness, two of them, David Israel and Moses
Ambrosius, were ordered to be taken into confinement and held until the amount
was made up. Among the sufferers was Asser " Leeven " or Levy, spoken of
in the text ; all of his goods were sold at auction, although before the sale he
had offered to pay all charges incurred by himself. The New Amsterdam
Court held him, however, to be a surety for the debt of all the others.
i Salvador d'Andradi was one of several Jewish partners who brought over
a consignment of goods in the ship " Great Christopher," in the early part of
1655. The other partners were Abraham de Lucina, David Frera, Joseph
Dacosta, and one other, whose name has not yet entirely died out in New York,
— Jacob " Cawyn," or Cohn. They arrived just in time to be roundly taxed
for the new city fortifications along Wall Street, although, as we have seen, they
were not allowed to become landholders.
LA CHAIR, THE NOTARY
87
ing the Council to reimburse him one half of the difference
in price; his request again fell upon unsympathetic ears.
Craie does not appear to have departed for the Netherlands
at this time; but there is every reason to believe that his
representations of this affair reached the Directors of the
West India Company at Amsterdam, who promptly repudi-
ated the action of Stuyvesant and the Council, and on the
14th of June, 1656, an order was made permitting the Jews
to establish a "quarter" in New Amsterdam: their numbers,
however, remained but small for many years.1
As for Teunis Craie's first-built house upon the corner of
Stone Street, he sold it about this time to an individual who
gave him far more trouble than his Jewish purchaser of the
adjoining premises, and that was to an impecunious gentle-
man of the legal profession, Solomon Pietersen La Chair by
name, who seems to have carried on his law office here in
conjunction with a small tavern, or ale-house, to which his
huysvrouw, Anneken, attended during his absence on the
multifarious duties of his profession in the Colony, — duties
which carried him sometimes to Breuckelen, sometimes to
Gravesend and occasionally as far as Fort Orange, or Albany.
For travelling facilities he seems to have made use of a small
yacht.
La Chair, of whom many curious particulars were brought
to light by the discovery in the New York County Clerk's
Office, some thirty or forty years ago, of his register of busi-
ness as a notary, and who seems to be regarded by Mr. D. T.
Valentine as the Father of the Bar of New York, — using of
course that term in its technical and not in its vulgar sense,
— ■ was undoubtedly a man of considerable attainments, pro-
fessional and otherwise, and possessed a very fair business
knowledge of English. His first appearance in New Am-
sterdam, so far as we are informed, was in the year 1655,
when he petitioned the Burgomasters for permission to keep
tavern in the house of Teunis Craie, then hired by him.
1 Their synagogue in Mill Street was not established till more than forty
years after the order of Council above mentioned.
88 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
It seems very probable that he had just arrived in New
Amsterdam at this time, and resorted to tavern-keeping until
he might be better able to gain a footing in the practice of
the more learned profession.
The location he had chosen was not an unfavorable one ;
as he sat at the front of his house in the intervals of busi-
ness, possibly poring over one of his commentaries on the
Roman -Dutch law, — in which quotations from the Mosaic
code, from the Greek and Latin classics, and from the
Fathers of the Church, were freely intermingled, in a manner
equally ponderous and bewildering, — he had before him just
at his right hand the bridge across the Ditch, or " Graft " in
Broad Street, which was about midway between the present
Bridge and Stone streets, and over which all persons from
the Long Island ferry, as well as from the eastern part of
town, must pass on their way to the Secretary's office and to
the other government offices near the fort ; while beyond the
bridge, looking over the gardens of three or four houses
along the shore, he had a clear view of anything that was
going on around the City Tavern, which served also at this
time as the Town Hall for public gatherings and the meet-
ings of the burgomasters, and was also the seat of the
ordinary courts.
But, as has been already suggested, La Chair was chroni-
cally impecunious: he did not pay his rent, and was sued
for it; he did not pay the wages of the pilot of his yacht,
and was sued for them ; he did not pay for various articles
purchased by him, and was sued for the price by the sellers ;
he did not pay until driven to the last ditch of resistance
certain fines and taxes imposed upon him, and then he ac-
companied the payment with such disparaging remarks upon
the collecting officers — in one case asserting that his money
was paid to no other purpose than " to have a little cock
booted and spurred " — that those aggrieved individuals
found it necessary to lay the matter before the Council in
order to soothe their wounded feelings; much after the
manner of their prototype, Dogberry:
TEUNIS CRAIE'S MISFORTUNES
89
"Moreover, sir (which, indeed, is not under white and black),
this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass. I beseech you,
let it be remembered in his punishment."
In the same way, when in the early part of 1656 La Chair
purchased the house he occupied of Teunis Craie, agreeing
to pay for it in instalments, the sum of 2000 guilders, or
about $800, — following his usual custom, he allowed him-
self to be sued for the very first instalment. This seems to
have been settled at the time, but two years later the owner
was obliged to bring suit for the last instalment, in answer to
which La Chair entered the airy plea " that the money was
ready at one time, but has slipped through his fingers;" it
appears, in fact, to have slipped through irrecoverably, for
we soon afterwards find Craie again in possession of his
house, which in 1660 he disposed of to Oloff Stevensen van
Cortlandt, La Chair in the mean time having removed to
another part of the town, where he died a few years later,
so insolvent that the court pondered a long time as to whether
a certain elaborate "gown and petticoat" of Anneken, his
widow, should be sold for the benefit of his creditors, or
whether they should be left to cheer the widow's heart in
her second nuptials with one William Doeckles.
It seems to have been the case that Teunis Craie 's opera-
tions in real estate in New Amsterdam had not been very
profitable to him, and he suffered a further misfortune in the
fact that a woodland tract of some sixty or seventy acres,
which he had acquired in 1653 upon Long Island (fronting
the East River, a short distance north of the present Astoria),
was rendered comparatively worthless to him for many years
by the order of the Council, in 1656, forbidding isolated
farms or plantations, in order to prevent depredations by the
Indians. In 1673 he had obtained a judgment of 186 florins,
or about $72, against Allard Anthony, the former sheriff, a
man of considerable political influence; this judgment he
had been unable to collect for nearly a year, and in 1674 he
applied to the court for permission to levy on the goods of
90 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the late sheriff, "earnestly entreating this Worshipful Court
once again to take his most pitiable condition into considera-
tion and to give order that the said Judgment may be put
into execution without further delay, to the end that he may
again receive his disbursed money to use it in nis old age."
Craie had retained a mere slip of ground upon the south
side of his original grant, and here he built one of the tiniest
dwelling-houses ever erected in New York;1 the lot upon
which it stood was less than ten feet front by about forty feet
deep ; it occupied very nearly the site of the covered drive-
way of the building No. 9'2 Broad Street, within which it
might almost have stood, among the bales of hay and bags
of feed now occupying that locality. Here Teunis Craie
appears to have resided for a number of years, partly sup-
ported by the not very lucrative official employments which
Mr. Valentine enumerates as having been held by him, such
as town crier, measurer of apples and onions brought to
market, and tally-master of the bricks and tiles imported
from Holland. In 1677, his widow Catrina conveyed the
small house above mentioned to the deacons of the Reformed
Church, in consideration of her support and maintenance,
she being then poor and aged. She had died prior to 1682,
in which year the officers of the church disposed of the
property.
However much Teunis Craie might have felt
" The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,"
he was lucky in comparison with his neighbor and former
landlord, Michiel Picquet, whose humble house stood at the
northwest corner of the present Bridge and Broad streets, as
previously described. This man had endeavored, in his lease
to Craie, as we have already seen, to guard himself against
14 enemies, Indians, or other inconveniences,"' — but he failed
1 A smaller one is, however, to be seen at present (1900) in Stone Street,
upon the rear of the old Stadt Huys ground. This diminutive structure, known
as No. 32^ Stone Street, has only about seven feet front.
PICQUET PUT TO THE TORTURE 91
to provide against one of the worst inconveniences of all, —
namely, that of an unbridled tongue. He appears, in fact,
to have been something of what the good Dame Quickly,
of Eastcheap, held in such abhorrence, — namely, a "swag-
gerer." In common with most of the citizens who had
suffered from the Indian wars, he entertained a bitter hatred
of Director Kieft, and he appears to have been a warm
partisan of his neighbor, just over " the Ditch" in Broad
Street, — Cornells Melyn, the leader of the opposition to the
arbitrary despotism of Kieft and of Stuyvesant. Soon after
Stuyvesant's arrival at New Amsterdam, in the early part of
the summer of 1647, and before Kieft had sailed for the
Netherlands on the fatal voyage of the "Princess," Picquet
was accused of having berated Kieft as "a betrayer of his
country, a villain and traitor; and saying if nobody would
shoot him, he (said Picquet) would do it himself; that his
legs should never carry him out of the country; that Cornells
Melyn had full a hundred men at his command, and there
would be great bloodshed on the spot where the ex-Director
surrendered his authority to General Stuyvesant; and if the
latter did not behave himself better than the old Director,
he, too, should pass under the door: (striking under his
arm)," — a somewhat vulgar allusion to the standard method
of punishment of refractory small boys.
Although this style of talk was probably a fair sample of
the ordinary ale-house discussions of the period, and although
it was generally winked at by the authorities in the case of
any person likely to have influence enough to carry his com-
plaints to the home country, it was not to be endured in the
case of this obscure Frenchman. Picquet was taken into
custody "for that scandalous and godless act," and was, in
fact, ordered to be put to the torture, — probably for the
purpose of extracting information respecting the matters
hinted at in his vaporings. It should not be forgotten, in
this connection, that the history of New York goes back to
the time when the rack was an acknowledged feature of
judicial procedure.
92 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Some kind of settlement was made of this affair, and
Picquet received Director-General Stuyvesant's pardon, but
his rancor had apparently not abated, and he had profited
but little by his former experience, for in a short time he was
again placed under arrest, charged with saying that he would
shoot the Director between his bouwery (at the present
Ninth Street) and the fort. The ignorant and probably weak-
minded character of this man is pretty well shown by the
record of his examination taken upon this occasion. When
asked what he had to say, he declared that the witnesses
against him were unworthy of belief because they "had
stolen watermelons and some boards. Asked if he could
prove it, says he has no proof, but that God was his wit-
ness." The trial of this case was attended with one public
benefit ; it displayed at a very early date in his administration
the thoroughly hypocritical character of the new Director-
General. Stuyvesant, at first, with a great parade of his vir-
tue, refused to sit as a judge upon the trial on account of his
personal interest in the matter. Afterwards, finding in all
probability the other members of the Council too leniently
disposed to suit his views, he sulkily took his seat with the
others, and was the only member of the court who voted that
a sentence of death should be passed upon the prisoner.
The judgment of the court was sufficiently severe, however ;
Michiel Picquet was sentenced to be transported to Holland
on the ship "Falconer," to serve a term of eighteen years'
imprisonment in 't Rasphuis, the criminal prison of Amster-
dam, so-called from the common occupation of the prisoners
at that time in rasping the heavy Brazil wood into dust for
dyeing purposes.
Before the sailing of the vessel, however, the prisoner
made his escape from Fort Amsterdam. The Council, with
a polite attention to form, somewhat similar to that of
the executioner's clownish assistant, calling the condemned
criminal to execution, in "Measure for Measure": "you
must be so good, sir, to rise and be put to death," — ordered
Picquet to be summoned three times "by the ringing of
BANISHMENT OF PICQUET 93
the bell, to come and defend his case." That obstinate and
unaccommodating individual having failed to appear, how-
ever, the Council proceeded, on July 4, 1647, to do the best
it could in vindication of its slighted authority by passing a
further sentence of banishment against Picquet, and of con-
fiscation of his property. His house at the corner of Bridge
and Stone streets is soon found — probably by direct grant
from the Director and Council — in the possession of Hen-
drick Willemsen, a baker, who occupied the premises for
many years.1
1 As for Picquet, he must have subsequently either surrendered himself or
been captured ; for in the fall of 1647 he, together with the Scotchman, Andrew
Forrester, agent of the Earl of Stirling, who had been imprisoned by the author-
ities at New Amsterdam, for asserting his principal's claim to Long Island was
sent away in the ship " Valckeuier " for transportation to the Netherlands. The
vessel, however, on its way, touched at an English port, and while there, both the
prisoners made their escape. (Letter of the Directors, etc., to General Stuy-
vesant, dated April 7, 1648.)
CHAPTER XI
CORNELIS MEL YN, PATROON OF STATE N ISLAND. — THE
INDIAN TROUBLES. — JOCHEM PIETERSEN KUYTER. —
THE STRUGGLES OF MELYN AND KUYTER AGAINST
THE COLONIAL AUTHORITIES. — THE BARON VAN DER
CAPELLEN.— SI BOUT CLAESEN, OF HOORN
He was one
Of many thousand such that die betimes,
Whose story is a fragment known to few.
Then comes the man who has the luck to live,
And he 's a prodigy. Compute the chances,
And deem there 's ne'er a one in dangerous times
Who wins the race of glory, but than him
A thousand men more gloriously endowed
Have fallen upon the course ; a thousand others
Have had their fortunes foundered by a chance,
Whilst lighter barks pushed past them.
Taylor : " Philip Van Artevelde."
IT has been already stated that the bridge over the little
stream in Broad Street was originally a short distance —
some fifty feet or thereabouts — north of Bridge Street. This
location carried the road towards the ferry around a parcel of
land situated upon the river shore, upon which stood the house
of a man who for half a score of years filled a very conspic-
uous position in the public eye, — Cornelis Melyn, of Antwerp.1
There is something about the determined character of
Cornelis Melyn, and the long struggle which he carried on
against the petty despots who represented the authority of the
1 The name Melyn, like so many others of the modern family names among
persons descended from a Germanic ancestry, is quite likely to have been derived
from some former place of residence of the family, which in this case, it is not
improbable, was the village of Melin, about sixty miles southeast of Antwerp, in
the direction of Maestricht, from which it is not far distant.
ANTWERP IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 95
West India Company in New Amsterdam, which lends an air
of historic dignity to the man, and marks him as one of the
first of a long line of champions in the colony, of individual
rights, as against arbitrary and irresponsible power. He came
naturally by his hatred of despotism. At his native Antwerp,
in the first half of the seventeenth century, he could have
talked with men who remembered when it was not unusual
for two thousand vessels or more to be lying in the port of
that city, or for a hundred to sail up the Scheldt with each
favoring tide. They could have told him of misfortune after
misfortune under the Spanish rule, of wars and grinding taxes,
of the introduction of the Inquisition, of the dreadful sack
of the city by the mutinous Spanish garrison in 1576, when
six thousand of the citizens perished by the sword, by fire, and
by water ; and he himself could have seen how the growth of
the commerce of Amsterdam, after its emancipation from the
Spanish incubus, had drawn away to itself the trade and the
most enterprising of the tradesmen of Antwerp. Now, as he
trod the streets of the city, their spaciousness contrasted
strangely with the solitude that reigned in them ; he passed
by quaint old mansions, of which the half were closed and
uninhabited; but few vessels were to be seen now in the
Scheldt or along the canals, and upon the quays the grass
grew ; the busy crowds had forsaken the great Exchange, and
there were seen there now "little more than peddlers and
fishwomen." There was one spot in the city which must have
stirred strongly the feelings of Cornelis Melyn, and that was
where a tall crucifix of gilt bronze, marked, according to
story, the site of the insulting statue erected half a century
before, by order of the bloody Duke of Alva, where he himself,
in full armor, was shown as trampling upon two prostrate
figures, designed to represent the lords and commons of Flan-
ders. The statue had perished long before in a tumult of the
indignant citizens, but the memory of it was not likely soon
to fade away in the decaying city.
And yet Antwerp still retained much of its former charm :
" A gilded halo, hovering round decay,"
96 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
which had induced John Evelyn, visiting it about this time,
to speak of it in his diary as " sweete Antwerp " — " nor did
I ever observe a more quiet, cleane, elegantly built and civil
place than this magnificent and famous citty of Antwerp."
From the well-known station of view across the Scheldt,
called, " Het Vlaamshe Hoofd," the Point of Flanders, and
seen in a bright afternoon, when the rays of the declining
sun threw into light and shadow the quaint carvings of the
old mansions, of the churches and public buildings, and of the
wonderful spire of the cathedral, towering more than three
hundred feet above them all, the city lay stretched along the
Scheldt like a gilded pageant.
Within the city, too, still dwelt men of genius and of learn-
ing ; indeed, in Melyn's day, Antwerp had attained the height
of its great artistic fame, and he may have often seen or talked
with Rubens, Van Dyke, and Teniers, chief of a long line of
predecessors and of followers in the painters' art. Still, what-
ever pleasant memories might cluster about the old city, its
prospects under foreign rule were becoming darker and darker ;
and Cornells Melyn, a man of competent means and past his
younger years, — he was born about the year 1602, — deter-
mined, doubtless not without some pangs, to try his fortunes
in the New World. Leaving his family in Europe, he sailed
for New Amsterdam in 1639. Here his attention was attracted
to the rounded, forest-clad hills and intervales of Staten Island,
and to its wide plains, upon which only one or two grants of
land, and those of no great extent, had as yet been made. He
sent an application next year to Amsterdam for a grant from
the West India Company to himself of the remainder of the
island. This was favorably entertained, and he thereupon
brought on his family from the Netherlands and set to work
vigorously to take the arduous steps necessary for developing
his tract. In 1642 he received his ground-brief or patent for
the island, upon which he had already established a number of
settlers, among whom, as it is supposed, he himself resided.
The period in which Melyn began the clearing for his plan-
tations upon Staten Island was an inauspicious one. The good
THE RARITAN INDIANS
97
understanding which had prevailed between the Dutch and
the native Indians for many years after the first settlement of
the former had begun to be seriously disturbed as the colonists
grew stronger and became more aggressive. It was in the year
1640, and in all probability soon after Melyn had made his
application to the West India Company for land upon Staten
Island, that a party of Raritan Indians, whose haunts were
upon that island and upon the mainland in the vicinity of the
river which still bears their name, was charged with having
committed some petty depredations upon the plantation of
David Pietersen de Vries, who had already commenced a clear-
ing upon the grant of land he had obtained on the island. To
punish the savages for this affair (which appears to have been
greatly exaggerated, even if the charges were not wholly
untrue), Kieft, who seems to have been painfully conscious
that he had done nothing as yet to distinguish himself in his
office, now determined to send an expedition against these
Indians. The party was headed by Secretary Van Tienhoven,
whose treacherous and cruel disposition was well adapted for
matters of this kind. The force numbered seventy men, and
taking the Indians by surprise at their villages — which seem
to have been in the neighborhood of the present Perth Amboy,
or Woodbridge — they slaughtered several of the savages, and
burned the crops in their fields. Van Tienhoven and his band
of Dutch warriors returned to New Amsterdam, it is true,
unharmed and in high feather after this feat ; but the 14 heathen "
Raritans, as Kieft was fond of calling them, were upon one
point just about as fully enlightened as their Christian ene-
mies. They understood thoroughly the lex talionis, and they
had, moreover, abundant opportunities for putting it in prac-
tice. They soon found their opportunity, and attacked the
lonely plantation of De Vries upon Staten Island, where they
killed four of his tobacco planters, destroyed the crops, and
fired the buildings. The parties were now in one sense quits ;
the Indians were henceforth upon their guard, and any further
expeditions against them were not likely to be attended by
success. In this emergency Kieft bethought himself of hiring
98 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the other Indians to murder the Raritans ; the Council makes
a report on the 4th of J uly, 1641 : " Wherefore, considering
the circumstances, we have adopted the means which seem to
us best suited to the emergency, viz. : To secure the help of
our Indian allies in their (the Raritans') neighborhood, over
whose territory the enemy must cross," — that is, in attempt-
ing to reach New Amsterdam, — " and who may stop them in
their wild forays, or at least give timely notice of their ap-
proach. And in order to encourage them the more, and lure
them with greater ardor to espouse our cause, we engaged to
pay them, for every head of a Raritan, ten fathoms of sewant,"
— worth about seventeen dollars of the present currency, —
" and for every head of any of those who murdered our people
on Staten Island, twenty fathoms of sewant." These measures
had little effect except to further enrage the Indians against
Kieft and the Dutch. It was under these inauspicious circum-
stances that Cornells Melyn began his settlement upon Staten
Island.
He seems to have remained unmolested by the Indians for
a considerable time, and this was doubtless owing to the
numerical strength of his colony. We have no exact infor-
mation upon this point, but as he had spent large sums of
money in furnishing stock and implements, he had undoubt-
edly secured a goodly number of colonists. At this period
he was evidently in harmony with Director-General Kieft,
who apparently had private business relations with him.
Indeed, it is said that his refusal to admit Kieft to full part-
nership in his Staten Island venture was one of the causes of
the Director-General's bitter hatred of him afterwards, —
though this is abundantly explained by other causes.
In the mean time, trouble was threatened in another quar-
ter. This grew out of the murder, in the summer of 1641, of
Claes Cornelissen Swits, commonly known as Claes Rade-
maker, or Claes the wheelwright, by an Indian of the Weck-
quaskeek tribe of Indians, inhabiting the shores of the
Hudson, in the lower part of the present Westchester County.
The murder is supposed to have been an act of private re-
KIEFT'S PLANS AGAINST THE INDIANS 99
venge for the slaying and robbery of an uncle of the mur-
derer many years before, by some of the lawless Europeans
infesting the settlement, the Indians having failed to obtain
any redress from the Dutch authorities. A prompt demand
was made upon the tribe for the surrender of the murderer of
Claes Cornelissen. This, however, was not complied with,
the Indians claiming, probably enough with truth, that he
was out of their reach.
At this time, according to the Memorial afterwards pre-
sented to the West India Company, on behalf of the people
of New Amsterdam, " a hankering after war had wholly
seized on the Director," and the affair of Swits seems to have
afforded Kieft a long sought for opportunity to carry out his
plans. It is rather difficult to understand the tortuous policy
of this man. That he was desirous of ridding the vicinity of
New Amsterdam of the troublesome native tribes and of get-
ting possession of their lands as one of the fruits of conquest,
is quite evident ; on the other hand, making due allowance
for the blind arrogance so frequently shown in dealings by
individuals of a so-called " dominant race " in their dealings
with a supposed inferior one, Kieft must have been well
aware that acts of violent and wholesale aggression against
the Indians would inevitably be resented by them, and that
in such case their power of inflicting injury upon the scat-
tered colonists and their farms would be most formidable. It
is difficult to reach any other conclusion than that the Di-
rector-General meant, from the first, to entrap the neighboring
Indians and to exterminate them at one blow, if possible,
trusting that, afterwards, distance and dissensions among the
tribes would prevent retaliation from the remoter Indians.
The business was by no means an easy one, however. If
he succeeded, he might doubtless expect to go down to pos-
terity as a hero and a great promoter of civilization ; but, on
the other hand, if he should fail, and disastrous results to the
colony should ensue, there would be a heavy account to settle
with his superiors, the West India Company. Under these
circumstances, lie craftily determined to try to implicate the
100 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
whole body of colonists in the onslaught he was preparing
to make upon the Indians, and to make it appear that he
was merely acting at their instance and request, thus re-
lieving himself from liability for the bloody experiment.
Accordingly, on the 29th of August, 1641, the " heads of
families " in New Amsterdam, who had previously had un-
commonly little to say about the affairs of the community,
were startled by having certain propositions publicly sub-
mitted for their discussion by the benevolent Director-
General and his Council, to the following effect :
" 1. If it is not just that the murder lately committed by a
savage upon Claes Swits be avenged ; and in case the Indians
will not surrender the murderer, if it is not just to destroy
the whole village to which he belongs ?
" 2. When and in what manner this should be executed ?
" 3. By whom can it be effected? "
The occasion was a momentous one : the citizens met and
appointed a committee of twelve, composed of some of the
most energetic individuals among them, this committee form-
ing the somewhat celebrated body known as "the Twelve
Men;,, at their head was Cornelis Melyn. Most of the
members of this body were men who had much at stake in
the event of hostilities with the natives. They appear to
have understood Kieft's design from the first, but their posi-
tion was a difficult one : if they should advise the Director and
Council against attempting to enforce by violence their claims
against the Indians, they knew that they would be charged at
once with pusillanimity, lack of patriotism, and disaffection
to the government by the Director and his Council, following
the usual custom of those in authority when their line of
governmental action, (no matter how unjust, impracticable,
or dangerous it may be), is opposed or criticised by the sub-
ject : furthermore, it might have a bad effect upon the natives
to place themselves formally upon record as being opposed to
the employment of force.
Accordingly, with all these things in view, they drew up, in
the fall of the same year, 1641, an answer to the Director's ques-
COMMITTEE OF "THE TWELVE MEN" 101
tions, in which answer considerable astuteness was displayed.
In this document the Committee, while assenting to the use of
force if necessary against the Indians, recommend many safe-
guards in the way of peaceable demands, mild demeanor towards
the natives, etc., and finally an expedition against them (prob-
ably for the purpose of securing hostages), when the Indian
warriors should be absent on their hunting expeditions. The
sting to the Director-General, however, lay in the following
clause : " That as the people recognize no other head than
the Director-General, therefore they prefer that he should
lead the van, while they, on their part, offer their persons to
follow his steps and to obey his commands."
The Director-General had been outwitted: the answer of
" the Twelve Men " was coldly received by him, and no
measures of importance were taken for a considerable period
against the Indians. Melyn and his committee, however,
proceeded further, and therein seems to lie their great mis-
take. In their appointment by the people, though it had really
been made only for a special and limited purpose, they
thought they saw an opportunity for establishing a popular
voice in the affairs of the colony, which had hitherto been
entirely lacking. Accordingly, on the 21st of January, 1642,
" the Twelve Men " sent in a petition to the Director-General,
designating themselves as " Selectmen on behalf of the Com-
monalty of New Netherland," — and praying for a redress of
certain grievances ; they requested that " the Council shall
from this time be rendered complete in members, especially
as the council of a small village in Fatherland consists of
five and seven schepens; that, from now henceforth, the
Director and Council do not try any criminals, unless five
Councillors be present, inasmuch as the Commonalty talk
considerably about it ; " they further request that representa-
tion should be had in the meetings of the Council, " so that
taxes may not be imposed on the country in the absence of the
Twelve."
Kieft was furious ; the body which he had created to
further his own crooked designs had not only thwarted him
102
NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
in them, but now was insolently attempting to interfere in his
favorite method of government, which was the absolute con-
trol of affairs by himself, with two or three dependent and
obsequious councillors to use as " buffers," to protect himself
from injury; a few days after the receipt of this petition, he
made a brusque order, forbidding " the Twelve Men " from
holding any further meetings.1
Matters ran along in this way until the following winter,
when the Weckquaskeek Indians, fleeing before the raid of
the Mohawks from the north, sought refuge in the vicinity of
New Amsterdam, as has been already noticed.2 Kieft was
now in high spirits : his long-sought opportunity for exter-
minating the Indians was at hand; he seems to have per-
suaded himself that Providence had been playing directly
into his hands, but still he did not wish to rely entirely upon
Providence ; he must have some means of implicating the
people at large in the business; but this was not an easy
matter, since he had forbidden the committee which they had
appointed from holding any meetings, and he knew very
well that if he should call them together again, they would in
all probability disapprove of a general massacre of the Indians.
He concluded, under these circumstances, to adopt what was
perhaps one of the most impudent tricks ever devised by men
in authority to try to give an appearance of justification to
their own unwarrantable acts. There was much public gos-
sip respecting a certain Shrovetide dinner, about this time
(February, 1643), at the farmhouse, on Broadway near the
present Pine Street, of Jan Damen, — one of the Committee
1 "February 8th, 1642. — Whereas the Commonalty, at our request, appointed
The Twelve to communicate their good counsel and advise on the subject of the
murder of Switz, and this being now completed we do hereby thank them for the
trouble they have taken, and shall, with God's help, make use of their rendered
written advice in its own time. . . . The said twelve men shall now henceforth
hold no further meeting, as the same tends to' a dangerous consequence and to
the great injury, both of the country and our authority. We do therefore hereby
forbid them calling any manner of assemblage or meeting, except by our express
order, on pain of being punished as disobedient subjects."
2 See page 22, ante.
MASSACRE OF THE INDIANS
103
of Twelve, — at which were present, with Kieft, Cornells van
Tienhoven, the secretary, and Abraham Verplanck (two of
the sons-in-law of Damen), and Maryn Adriaensen, a sort of
dependant and debtor of the latter ; at this dinner the Shrove
pancakes were, it was said, washed down with mysterious
toasts to the success of some great enterprise which was on
foot.
However this may be, a petition was entered upon the
minutes of the Council in the following remarkable terms :
To the Honorable "Willem Kieft, Director-General of New Nether-
land, and his Honorable Council : —
The whole of the freemen respectfully represent that though
heretofore much innocent blood was spilled by the savages without
having had any reason or cause therefor, yet your Honors made
peace on condition that the chiefs should deliver the murderer
into our hands (either dead or alive), wherein they have failed up
to the present time : the reputation which our nation hath in other
countries has thus been diminished, even notwithstanding innocent
blood calleth aloud to God for revenge ; we therefore request your
Honors to be pleased to authorize us to attack the Indians as
enemies, whilst God hath delivered them into our hands ; for
which purpose we offer our persons. This can be effected at one
place by the freemen, and at the other by the soldiers.
Your Honor's Subjects,
(Signed) Maryn Adriaensen
Jan Jansen Damen
Abm Planck.
(Lower Stood)
By their authority
Corns van Tienhoven, Secretary.
The savage massacre of the Indians followed, and then the
swift retaliation upon the Dutch, which in the course of a
few months reduced the thirty or forty farmhouses on Man-
hattan Island to four or five which still remained standing,
and which drove in the survivors of the Indian depredations
to dwell in « huts of straw " around Fort Amsterdam. The
number of colonists at Cornelis Melyn's settlement upon
104 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Staten Island seems to have retarded its fate for a time. It
was still unattacked as late as October, 1643, though " hourly
expecting an assault," — which soon afterwards came, and
left it a desolate waste. Melyn had, in the mean time,
removed his family to New Amsterdam, and sought out a
place of abode there.
East of "the Ditch" in Broad Street lay a low rise of
land along the East River ; towards the shore, it terminated
in a crumbling bank of no great height, above the stony
beach, and at a distance of about two hundred and fifty feet
back from the shore, it fell away into a low and damp depres-
sion, which formed an easterly arm to the swamp occupying
the vicinity of Broad Street, and which was called, in the
early days of the colony, " Blommaert's Vly," as has already
been stated. Along the middle of this low ridge, the officers
of the Company had established the road leading out from the
bridge to the ferry to Long Island. It soon acquired the
name of Hoogh Straet, — the High Street; after the sur-
render to the English in 1664, it gradually came to be called
Duke's Street, in honor of the Duke of York ; and at present
it forms the easterly portion of Stone Street, being nearly
a continuation of the street originally known by that name.
Upon the south side of this street, just west of the present
Coenties Alley, and situated well back towards the shore, the
Director and Council had erected, in 1641, the commodious
building known as the Great Tavern, afterwards in part used
as the Town Hall, of which further notice will be taken here-
after. From the present Broad Street to the Great Tavern,
all the land lying between the Hoogh Straet and the shore
had been taken up, at an early date, by two individuals, one
of whom was Burger Jorissen, a man of prominence in the
town, who had built a house here, and received a ground-brief
for it in 1643 ; he occupied a plot of about one hundred and
thirty-five English feet frontage, next adjoining the tavern.
The other occupant was located upon a much smaller plot,
about at the corner of the present Broad Street ; this was one
Eben Reddenhaus, a German from the principality of Waldeck,
CORNELIS MELYN'S HOUSE
105
who had recently (in 1641) married in New Amsterdam,
and built a house here, but who died soon afterwards. There
remained but one more available parcel along the river in this
vicinity, and that one covered the end of the present Broad
Street, at that time (as already stated) not designed to be
kept open as a street. Of this parcel, Cornells Melyn received
a ground-brief in 1643 ; it was about sixty-two English feet
in front along the road, which with the bridge lay north of it,
and it extended in depth about eighty-eight English feet to
the river shore ; through it the stream or ditch from Blom-
maerts Vly ran into the East River.
Here, then, Cornelis Melyn built his house, evidently a
modest one, designed only for occasional use in troublesome
times. It would appear to have been a two-story house of
small size ; in all probability built of brick. This house was
removed about 1657, when the authorities determined to
change the ditch in Broad Street into a " Graft," or canal,
with a roadway on each side of the same ; its location appears
to have been in the easterly half of the present Broad Street,
midway between Stone and Pearl streets. Desiring to con-
trol more land in this vicinity than his original small plot,
Melyn bought, in August, 1644, from the widow of Eben
Reddenhaus, for the sum of 250 guilders, or about 8100, her
house and ground, and in December of the same year, from
Burger Jorissen, his house and larger parcel for 950 guilders,
or $380, so that he now owned all the land along the river
from " the Ditch " to the City Tavern.
Melyn's residence in New Amsterdam, taken in conjunc-
tion with the forlorn condition of the colonists, seems to have
stimulated him to more active exertions. In the fall of 1643,
he, with his associates, then known from their number as " the
Eight Men," addressed Memorials both to the States-General
of the Netherlands and to the West India Company, setting
forth the melancholy state of their affairs, and depicting in
vivid colors the ravages of the Indians ; they tell how " daily
in our houses and fields have they cruelly murdered men and
women, and with hatchets and tomahawks struck little chil-
106 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
dren dead in their parents' arms or before their doors, or car-
ried them awa}' into bondage ; the . houses and grain barracks
are burnt with the produce ; cattle of all descriptions are slain
and destroyed, and such as remain must perish this approach-
ing winter for want of fodder. Almost every place is aban-
doned. . . . We wretched people must skulk with wives and
little ones that still survive in poverty together, in and around
the fort at the Manhattans, where we are not safe even for
an hour." These Memorials, however, contained something
in the nature of a threat, which, while it was natural enough
under the circumstances, was probably not well advised:
" Should suitable assistance not arrive (contrary to our ex-
pectations), we shall through necessity, in order to save the
lives of those who remain, be obliged to betake ourselves to
the English at the East, who would like nothing better than
to possess this place." These suggestions, though possibly
they may not have had much effect upon the members of the
States-General, seem to have sunk deeply into the minds of
some of the Directors of the West India Company, and to
have created with them a prejudice against the memorialists,
which afterwards bore bitter fruit for the latter.
In the mean time, Kief t had been bestirring himself to clear
away the odium for the Indian massacre from his name, and
to make it appear that it had been the work of the people, in
opposition to his own personal views ; and he had sent ac-
cordingly to the West India Company a pamphlet containing
a resume* of the whole affair, which pamphlet, according to
Dominie Bogardus, " contained more lies than lines." The
effrontery of the man was so amazing that in 1644 Melyn and
his associates determined to send a private communication
or memorial to the West India Company directing their atten-
tion to the falsehoods "which Kieft was endeavoring to dis-
seminate. This document, bearing date 28th October, 1644,
though drawn up under circumstances of great provocation,
contained much vituperation of Kieft and his advisers, and
proved to be the source of much trouble for Cornells Melyn, who
was considered, probably with justice, as having been its author.
CAPTAIN KUYTER
107
Although the proceedings of " the Eight Men" were con-
ducted with secrecy, and though Kieft does not appear to
have been aware for a considerable period of the communi-
cation of 1644 to the West India Company, there seems to
have been early manifested a bad state of feeling on his part
towards Cornells Melyn, which displayed itself in various petty
annoyances towards the latter. In 1645, he was charged by
the fiscal with having sold wine to the Indians, but nothing
appears to have come of the affair. Melyn had at this time
leased about two acres of ground from the officers of the
Company, covering the site of the present Trinity Church
and the northern portion of the churchyard, and extending
to the river bank. This he employed for the purpose of
raising grain, evidently for his family use. On the 31st of
May, 1646, Kieft and his Council, pettishly alleging that
Melyn, u having planted and fenced a piece of land north of
the Company's garden, taking in more ground than belonged
to him, sweeping away with a curve behind said garden, and
making use of the sods and earth of the Company's soil for
security of said land," ordered that " he may cut his grain,
and then deliver up the Company's ground in the same con-
dition as in the Spring."
In the mean time, Cornelis Melyn acquired, at about this
period, a neighbor who was to prove a faithful ally to him,
and whose fortunes were to be bound up together with his
own for several years to come. This was the worthy Captain
Jochem Pietersen Kuyter, an ex-sea-captain in the Danish
service, and one of the pioneers of the settlement at Harlem.
The humble cottage of Eben Reddenhaus, which had been
bought by Melyn, as above stated, and which stood near
the northeast corner of the present Pearl and Broad streets,
was in a short time sold by him to one Seger Teunissen.
This man was soon afterwards killed by the Indians, and
upon the West India Company's officers taking charge of his
property, they found in a trading " yacht " belonging to him
certain goods which had not been entered with the revenue
officials. Kieft, in pursuance of his usual arbitrary course of
108 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
conduct, and, as was claimed, without any form of trial, and
in disregard of the rights of Teunissen's widow, immediately
ordered his property to be confiscated and sold ; and it is
supposed that it was under these proceedings that the house
on the shore of the East River was purchased by Jochem
Pietersen Kuyter, who took up his residence there, after his
farmhouse near the Harlem River had been destroyed by the
Indians in 1644.
Jochem Pietersen Kuyter was a native of the District of
Ditmarssen, that portion of the Duchy of Holstein which lies
on the German Ocean, between the mouths of the Elbe and
the Eyder rivers, the broad flat meadows of which district,
well stocked with the black and white cattle of the country,
the passenger, coming down the Elbe from Hamburg, may
see stretching away to his right.
There was much in the situation and prospects of Kuyter
that was similar to those of Cornells Melyn. Like the latter,
he was a man of education and of some means, who had come
over in the year 1639, well furnished with cattle, implements,
and labor for commencing a plantation on a fairly large scale.
As an energetic colonizer, in the prime of his activity, — he
was born about 1597, — he was much courted and favored by
the West India Company, which desired to attract such men
to its colony. With him came his friend Jonas Bronck, from
whose bouwery north of the Harlem, the Bronx River, which
flowed near it, received its name, and thence the important
division of New York City known as the Borough of the
Bronx. With his farmers and herdsmen, Kuyter settled on
the opposite side of the Harlem River from his friend Jonas
Bronck, upon a tract of nearly four hundred acres of fine
farming land, of which he had obtained a grant from the
West India Company. This tract stretched along the Harlem
River from about the present One Hundred and Twenty-
seventh to One Hundred and Fortieth streets, and was com-
monly known, long after his memory had faded away among
men, as " Jochem Pieter's Flats ; " Kuyter himself called it
" Zegendaal," or " Vale of Blessing." Although much of his
STUYVESANT'S ARRIVAL
109
time away from the settlement and at the other end of Man-
hattan Island, he interested himself in the progress of the
village, and in 1642 was one of the " kerkmeesters " chosen
to oversee the erection of the new church in the fort ; not,
says Riker in his " History of Harlem," without an eye to the
services of his workmen, 44 who were skilled and would pre-
pare the timber." By this time his plantation was well
established and was yielding good returns of tobacco. Con-
scious of its exposed position, he, like most of the Board of
Twelve Men (of which he was a member), was averse to using
violent measures with the Indians, and he foretold to Kieft
the quick retribution which would ensue for their massacre.
His own bouwery house, being well palisaded about, escaped
the first devastations of the Indians, but on the 5th of March,
1644, he being then absent from the farm, the buildings, though
guarded, were set on fire in the night and destroyed by the
savages.
Like Melyn, Kuyter was now forced to seek an abode for
himself in the village of New Amsterdam, and in this way
apparently he came to purchase the small house at the corner
of Broad and Pearl streets, already spoken of. Henceforth,
he and Cornells Melyn were closely associated in their rela-
tions towards Kieft and towards his successor, Director-
General Stuyvesant.
This latter person, who had taken the place of Kieft by
appointment from the West India Company in 1646, had
been long looked for, and in May, 1647, he arrived at New
Amsterdam. Most of the inhabitants of the town were as-
sembled on Schreyers Hoek and at the little dock when the
new Director- General landed ; and they accompanied him to
the fort, where Kieft was ready to surrender the government.
In doing so, he, with great assurance, thanked the citizens for
the attachment and fidelity they had always shown to him,
and requested their formal indorsement of his administration.
On all sides a loud shout of dissent went up from the crowd,
half of whom, probably, had been ruined as the result of his
atrocious Indian policy; and Melyn and Kuyter declared
110 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
roundly that they had nothing to thank him for, and no
approval to give.
This scene seems to have made a deep impression upon one
person at least, and that one was the new Director- General.
It was not that he approved of Kieft's conduct toward the
Indians ; on the contrary, he believed in giving the latter just
and conciliatory treatment, not so much, in all probability, on
account of the absolute right of the matter, but by reason of
the power possessed by the natives of doing harm to the col-
ony. Like most despotical-minded men placed in positions
of considerable power, however, Stuyvesant entertained a
profound jealousy of those who would be likely to criticise
his acts or to attempt to thwart his will, and such men he
saw at once in Cornells Melyn and in Jochem Pietersen
Kuyter, and he undoubtedly entered upon his administration
with a hearty hatred of them.
His hatred was not long in showing itself. Within a few
days after Kieft had delivered up his office, Melyn and Kuyter,
as representatives of the old board known as "the Eight
Men," brought a formal complaint against Kieft, and asked
for an inquiry into the abuses of his late government, and
respecting his treatment of the Indians. They received a
prompt answer from Stuyvesant that he considered the de-
nials of the late Director-General as of more weight than any
evidence his antagonists could bring to support their charges ;
he would recognize them in no political capacity, but consid-
ered them merely as " perturbators of the public peace." The
Director-General and Council accordingly declined to entertain
their complaint.
Melyn and Kuyter had in fact ventured upon very danger-
ous ground. Unwittingly they had come before a magistrate
as thoroughly prejudiced as any judge that ever sat upon a
bench of justice, ministering to his own interests and passions
while making pretences of doing equity. At the time of
their private communication to the West India Company,
respecting Kieft, in October, 1644, Peter Stuyvesant had been
admitted as one of the Directors of that Company. No direct
TRIAL OF MELYN AND KUYTER 111
action appears to have been taken in the matter by the West
India Company, bnt when Stuyvesant came from the Nether-
lands in the spring of 1647, he brought to Kieft a copy of the
letter of " the Eight Men," which seems to have been the
first information Kieft had received of that communication.
Thoroughly enraged, and very sure of his judge, Kieft, on
June 19, 1647, brought criminal charges against Melyn and
Kuyter for libel and for inducing the rest of " the Eight Men "
to join in a false statement to the West India Company.
Small grace was allowed to the accused men by Stuyvesant.
They were ordered to file their answer to the charges within
twenty-four hours. A small extension of time must have
been granted to them, however, for their answer bears date
June 22, 1647. In this document they boldly reiterate the
charges, and offer to bring forward the four survivors of the
" Board of Eight Men," to testify that as a matter of fact
they had signed the charges against Kieft of their own will,
and not through any influence of the persons accused. In
reply to Kieft's demand that they should be sent to the Neth-
erlands " as pests and seditious persons," they aver their wil-
lingness to go there "as good patriots and proprietors in New
Netherland." Stuyvesant's previous conduct had taught them
what they had to expect from him, and they made no attempt
to conciliate him ; on the contrary, their answer contains a
most cutting as well as just allusion to " the meanness and
cowardice of those in authority who insult those who dare
not answer them." They had undoubtedly determined, in
anticipation of Stuyvesant's decision, to carry their cause
before the States-General of the Netherlands.
The decision of Stuyvesant and his Council was not long
delayed. On the 25th of July, 1647, Jochem Pietersen Kuy-
ter, one of whose atrocious acts consisted in "raising his
finger in a threatening manner " to Kieft, was sentenced to
three years' banishment and a fine of 150 guilders ; while
Melyn was found guilty of an assortment of crimes, embrac-
ing treason, bearing false witness, and libel and defamation ;
he was sentenced to seven years' banishment and a fine of
112 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
800 guilders ; Stuyvesant was exceedingly loath to let Melyn
escape out of his clutches, and pleaded hard in the Council
for a sentence of death upon him, citing in support of his
views many pedantic quotations from the Hebrew and Roman
Law ; but the Council, though disposed to be sufficiently ob-
sequious, could not be brought to vote for the death penalty.
Stuyvesant, in fact, seems to have had some forebodings of
future trouble from Melyn and Kuyter, but as they could not
be legally put to death, and as it would have been a constant
source of danger to have kept them in confinement in New
Amsterdam, where they were both very popular, he had to
let them go, contenting himself with malignantly observing
to Melyn, " If I were persuaded you would appeal from my
sentences, or divulge them, I would have your head cut off,
or have you hanged on the highest tree in New Netherland."
Did these things bring to the mind of Cornells Melyn the
statue of Alva at Antwerp with his foot upon the necks of
the Estates of Flanders ? It was an old story ! This petty
despot in the fort at New Amsterdam only showed the same
traits, upon his small stage, as the tyrants whom the men of
the Low Countries had fought for generations upon a larger
field. Stuyvesant 's notions of authority were only those of
the Count of Flanders :
" The Lion stirred and awoke with a snort,
And he swelled with rage till his breath came short :
' Ere the brown leaf meet with the flake of snow
On the roundabout stair, to Ghent I '11 go.
u 1 For a little bird sang, and I dreamed as well,
That the men of Ghent were as false as hell ;
Coming by stealth when naught I feared,
They trod on my toes and pulled my beard.'
" Ere a snowflake fell, the Lion he went,
And he roared a roar at the Gates of Ghent ;
The gates they shook, though they were fast barred,
And the warders heard it at Oudenarde.
" At the very first roar, ten thousand men
Fell sick to death ; he roared again,
And the blood of twenty thousand flowed
By the bridge of Roone, as broad as the road.
MELYN AND KUYTER SAIL
113
M "Wo worth thee, Ghent ! if having heard
The first and second, thou bidest the third.
Flat stones and awry, grass, potsherd, and shard, —
Thy place shall be like an old churchyard."
Only about three weeks remained for Melyn and Kuyter
to settle their affairs, to make ready such documents as they
could with safety, to lay before the States-General upon the
appeal which they had determined to make, and to prepare
for their long absence, if unsuccessful in their endeavors.
The ship " Princess," upon which they must depart, lay in the
harbor taking in her cargo, and was announced to sail about
the middle of August. The intervening time doubtless wit-
nessed many long and earnest consultations at the two small
houses between u the ditch " and the river shore. On the
11th of July of this year, 1647, Melyn had made a deed
(probably in anticipation of the storm which was brewing) of
his house in the present Broad Street to his eldest daughter,
Cornelia, who on April 30 of the same year had married Cap-
tain Jacob Loper, a Swede of Stockholm by birth, but who
for some time had held a naval appointment in the Dutch
service.
Finally, on the 17th of August, 1617, Melyn and Kuyter,
together with Kieft, Dominie Bogardus, and several other
prominent characters of New Amsterdam, sailed from that
town as previously mentioned,1 on the fatal voyage of the
" Princess," Melyn being accompanied by a young son. The
voyage could not have been marked by much cordiality be-
tween the ex-Director-General and the men whom he had
harassed by his prosecutions ; but when the " Princess "
struck upon the rocks near Swansea, the near approach of
death seems to have had an illuminating effect upon the
mind of Kieft: "Friends," he said, with a sigh, to Kuyter
and Melyn, " I have been unjust towards you ; can you for-
give me ? "
Cornells Melyn was one of the few who escaped death in
the shipwreck, but his son was drowned. As for Kuyter, he
1 See ante, page 27.
8
114 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
told how he had lashed himself to a portion of the after deck
of the vessel, and how when the first dim light broke after
that night of horror, he had discovered himself to be alone
upon the floating fragment, except for what he took to be
another person likewise lashed fast. Speaking, and receiving
no answer, he concluded that the man was dead; it turned
out to be a cannon, which with the wreck and Kuyter was
thrown by the violent surf upon the beach, where, breaking
from its lashings it was found, — to their utmost amazement,
— by the miners of Glamorgan and Caermarthen shires, who
crowded to the spot as soon as it was day, and who afterwards
set up the cannon as a memorial of the wonderful event.
Melyn and Kuyter afterwards caused the sea in the vicinity
of the wreck to be dragged for their chests, and in this way
they were fortunate enough to recover a portion of their
valuable papers. Reaching the Netherlands from England
towards the close of the year 1617, they immediately pro-
ceeded to lay their case before the States-General, at the
Hague. They found that body favorably disposed towards
them ; 1 their misfortunes had attracted public attention to
them to a much greater degree than they were likely other-
wise to have received; furthermore, the government of the
Netherlands was by no means averse from exercising a re-
vision over the affairs of the West India Company; and
the whole prosecution of the criminal proceedings had been
disposed of with such manifest injustice toward the con-
demned persons that the States-General acted with little
delay, and on the 28th of April, 1648, it issued an order, in
the form of a mandamus, permitting an appeal to be had by
Melyn and Kuyter from the criminal judgments pronounced
against them by Director Stuyvesant and his Council, order-
ing a suspension of all proceedings under said judgments,
1 Much more so than were the Directors of the West India Company, who
on April 7, 1648, wrote to Stuyvesant : " Cornelis Melyn is well known to us, and
we shall understand how to refute his complaint. It is to be regretted that
people have become so intimate with such fellows, when they ought to have
given a good example to others," — referring doubtless to his supporters in the
States-General.
MANDAMUS TO STUYVESANT 115
and summoning Stuyvesant to appear before them to justify
his acts. Under the procedure of the Dutch law, such
orders were required to be served by a messenger of the
States-General, or by a marshal or notary ; but to avoid the
inconvenience of this in the present case, a special order
was made allowing the service on Stuyvesant to be made by
any person whom Melyn and Kuyter might appoint. It was
arranged that Melyn should return to New Amsterdam with
the order of the States-General, while Kuyter should remain,
to be prepared for any treachery or exertion of arbitrary
power on the part of Director- General Stuyvesant. In order
to further guard against such danger, Melyn also procured a
letter of safety for himself, directed to Stuyvesant, from the
Stadtholder of the United Provinces personally, — William
II., Prince of Orange, father of the great politician best
known to us as William III., King of England.
Armed with these documents, Melyn sailed in the winter
of 1648-49, apparently landing at Boston, and thence travel-
ling through New England to New Amsterdam. He was
naturally exultant at his victory over the Director-General,
and seems to have shown some lack of discretion, exhibiting
his papers from the Netherlands in several places, and talking
in rather a high strain. At New Haven he met one of his
townsmen, Eghbert van Borsum, who afterwards made a de-
position that Melyn had said " that the High and Mighty
Lords, the States of the United Netherlands, were greatly
surprised that the English had not forcibly dragged Director
Stuyvesant out of the Fort, and hung him on the highest
tree; also that he had brought Kieft to his grave and
that he would bring Stuyvesant also there : " there was other
talk, according to the informant, but he went away, " so that
he might no longer listen to the prattle."
Upon his arrival at New Amsterdam in March, 1649,
Melyn took care to revenge himself upon the Director-
General for the insults he had previously received from him
by having as many of the citizens of New Amsterdam as he
could get together present to witness the mortification of that
116 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
official when the order of the States-General was served upon
him : he even attempted to lengthen out the torture of his
arbitrary and crestfallen opponent by reading aloud to him
the contents of the document, but this Stuyvesant prevented
by angrily snatching the paper from him, — no doubt to the
great delight of the crowd; he, however, sullenly announced
his intention of respecting the orders of the Prince of Orange
and of the States- General.
In the mean time, encouraged by the results of the applica-
tion of Melyn and Kuyter to the States-General, the jurist
Adriaen van der Donck, in conjunction with several other
opponents of the administration at New Amsterdam, pre-
pared in July, 1619, the historic document known as " The
Remonstrance of New Netherland." This vigorous paper,
attacking the whole policy of the West India Company in
relation to its colony of New Netherland, was carried over to
the Fatherland by a deputation including Van der Donck
and Melyn. Their departure was hastened by the fact that
the Director-General had quietly sent over the Secretary Van
Tienhoven to represent him before the States-General. The
Secretary probably carried with him a letter from Stuyvesant
to that body, bearing date Aug. 10, 1649, ostensibly for the pur-
pose of acknowledging the receipt of their mandamus, but in
reality filled with insinuations against Cornells Melyn. Two
weeks after the departure of Van Tienhoven the deputation
sailed, — probably by the next vessel, — and for the second
time Melyn watched the house of his family near the East
River shore fade away in the distance ; he left them behind
him, to be subjected to various petty annoyances from the
Director-General. In the summer of the year 1649, Melyn's
son-in-law, Captain Loper, applied for permission to trade in
the South or Delaware River, but although the Council was
in favor of granting the application, Stuyvesant sullenly re-
fused to do so, giving no other reason than that he had re-
ceived express orders from his superiors " to keep an eye on
Cornells Melyn." " We wish," says Janneken, the wife
of Cornells Melyn, in a letter to her husband, dated December
DELAYS IN THE NETHERLANDS
117
17, 1649, " that God would be pleased to send the delegates
back quickly, with business accomplished, for here matters
continue so bad as to excite murmurs against Heaven."
Matters, however, did not move quickly; the management
and even the future existence of the West India Company
itself were now in question before the States- General, and
although that corporation had much declined from its former
power, it had still sufficient resources to make a vigorous
finrht in its own behalf and in that of its officers. To the
o
charges made by Van der Donck, Melyn, and others, it sent
to the States-General on the 27th of January, 1650, an
answer couched in bitter terms against the petitioners.1
Following the practice adopted b}^ the States-General, all
matters relating in any way to the West India Company
were referred, in the first instance, to a standing committee
upon the affairs of that body, there sometimes to slumber
a long while. Melyn seems to have become wearied of the
delays, and on the 8th of February, 1650, he complains to
the States-General that owing to the absence from New
Amsterdam of the Secretary, and to the obstacles thrown in
his way by the authorities at that place, he has been unable
to obtain certain papers necessary for his suit ; and he prays
that august body to take into consideration the fact that he
" hath now groped such a length of time, since the year 1643,
in this labyrinth, without any error or fault of his, for the
advancement of the public interests."
The records which are accessible fail to show the final re-
sult of the appeal of Melyn and Kuyter to the States- General
from Stuyvesant's arbitrary judgments, but whether these were
finally overturned or not, no further molestation to those per-
sons appears to have ever taken place by reason of them, and
both Kuyter and Melyn were now anxious to return to New
Netherland and to take advantage of the quiet now prevailing
with the Indians, to restore their wasted plantations.
1 The malignant disposition of the officers of the West India Company towards
Melyn, Kuyter, and Van der Donck, — especially towards Melyn, — are shown in
almost every letter sent by them to New Netherland about this time.
118
NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
In his long sojourn at the Hague, Cornelis Melyn had been
frequently brought into contact with a person of some note
in the government at that period. It has been already stated
that the papers relating to the affairs of the West India Com-
pany which were presented to the States- General were re-
ferred in the first instance to a standing committee of that
body. At the head of this committee was Henryk van der
Capellen : this gentleman was a deputy to the States-General
from the county of Zutphen, and was a member of the Dutch
nobility, being Lord of Esselt and Hasselt, near the east shore
of the Zuyder Zee. Pie is frequently spoken of in the docu-
ments relating to New Netherland by his title of Baron van der
Capellen tho Ryssel, and was a man of independent fortune.1
The Baron van der Capellen appears to have taken a lively
interest in the affairs of Cornelis Melyn, and not only did he
forward the interests of the latter in the reports of his com-
mittee to the States-General, but he finally entered into an
agreement with him for the improvement and development of
his Staten Island manor, or rather patroonship, in which
Van der Capellen purchased an interest.
The associates now made active preparations for carrying
on the work of improvement. Van der Capellen purchased,
in the summer of 1650, a ship called Nieuw Nederlandsche
Fortuy n, — The Fortune of New Netherland, — which he
designed to send over to his colony ; the vessel sailed for New
Amsterdam in the fall or winter of that year, carrying a
superintendent, carpenter, seven farmers, and a company of
1 In an interesting communication respecting the ancient Van der Capellen
family, Mr. Arnold J. F. van Laer, of the manuscript department in the State
Library at Albany and formerly of Utrecht in the Netherlands, observes : " This
is one of our prominent historic families, having played an important part in
the eighty years' war with Spain. They were originally from France, where they
received, as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries, favors from the court ; and
the house, in which the title of baron has been used for centuries, is to this day
closely allied with the oldest families in the country." Henryk van der Capellen,
referred to in the text, is understood to have died in 1659, leaving no descendants ;
it is uncertain whether his Staten Island estate was surrendered to the West
India Company, or whether it was confiscated by the English, in the hands of
his collateral heirs in 1664, as being the property of subjects of the Netherlands.
STUYVESANT CONFISCATES "FORTUNE " 119
seventy persons in all, with their necessary equipment, for
the colony. With them returned Cornelis Melyn, who on the
preceding July 1 had received from the States-General let-
ters of protection against his inveterate enemy Stuyvesant.1
The ship " Fortune," forced by stress of weather, touched at
the Rhode Island Colony, and thence pursued her voyage to
New Amsterdam ; by this deviation from her course, she had,
it was claimed, infringed upon some of the customs regula-
tions; and the Director-General grasped with avidity the
opportunity of revenging himself upon Cornelis Melyn, whom
1 It may not be out of place here to give some account of the further progress
of the proceedings before the States-General against Director- General Stuyvesant
and the West India Company, in the investigation sought for by Adriaen van der
Donck and his associates in the "Remonstrance" of 1649. On the 9th of August,
1650, the committee of the States-General reported that the matters alleged
ought to be inquired into, and that Cornelis van Tienhoven, Stuyvesant's secre-
tary and representative, then in the Netherlands, should be examined upon inter-
rogatories. That wily individual, after having upon the 29th of November,
1650, delivered a scurrilous reply to the "Remonstrance," managed to evade
an examination till the latter part of the winter of 1650-51, when it was found
that he was preparing to return to New Amsterdam. Thereupon the States-
General, on February 7, 1651, made an order that he should not leave the country
till he had auswered certain prepared interrogatories ; and on March 14 a
further order was served upon him and Jan Jansen Damen, his father-in-law,
who had accompanied him from New Amsterdam as Stuyvesant's private agent,
to appear for examination before the legislative body. The parties concerned,
well assured of the backing of the West India Company, coolly set at defiance
the mandate of the States-General. Jan Damen, bearing with him a deed from
the West India Company to himself, as agent for Tetrus Stuyvesant, of " the
company's great bouwery" (well known for nearly two hundred years as the
Stuyvesant Farm, on Manhattan Island), which deed bore date March 12, 1651,
immediately sailed for New Amsterdam, as the secretary of the company calmly
notified the States-General, on the 21st of that month. Much irritated, the
States-General now ordered the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Com-
pany not to allow Van Tienhoven to leave Amsterdam, and to notify the skipper
of their ship " Waterhont," by which he was preparing to depart, not to receive
him till he had obtained their permit. This order was treated with the same
contempt as the former one, and on May 5, Van Tienhoven set sail for New
Amsterdam. The matter appears to have now been allowed to drop. That
such disregard of the authority of the States-General was suffered, appears to
have been partly owing to the dislike of the States-General to interfere in
provincial matters, partly owing to the ill-defined limits of its authority, and
partly owing to the inexpediency of exciting hostile feelings or dissensions in the
then threatening state of affairs between the United Provinces and England.
120 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
he affected to consider as a concealed partner in the enter-
prise. He proceeded in the most arbitrary manner ; the crew
of the " Fortune " were arrested and thrown into prison, and
the vessel was condemned and sold. Stuyvesant had, however,
in this matter, attacked a person who was too influential to be
assailed thus with impunity. The Baron van der Capellen
immediately instituted proceedings before the States-General
against the West India Company for the illegal seizure of his
vessel ; he was awarded heavy damages, and the Company
had to pay roundly for the privilege of maintaining their
despotic servant in his office at New Amsterdam.
As for Melyn himself, we do not find that he actually came
in person at this time into the clutches of Stuyvesant, and
there is reason to believe that instead of coming up to the
town on the incoming vessel, he landed at his " manor " upon
Staten Island. The men of Melyn's colony, and those of his
partner, Van der Capellen, must have made quite a consider-
able force, and Stuyvesant does not appear to have considered
it advisable to make any hostile incursion against him.1 His
property in New Amsterdam, however, embracing what re-
mained of his purchases of 1644, and extending along the
river shore from near the present Broad Street to the City
Tavern, at the head of the present Coenties Slip, was confis-
cated by Stuyvesant's orders. A portion of it, adjoining the
tavern, was added to the ground of that establishment, and
the remainder was divided into four parcels extending from
" the road," or the present Stone Street, to the river shore,
and these were granted to various persons in September, 1651.
Cornells Melyn now continued to reside for several years
upon his Staten Island estate, not venturing, according to
statements made by some of his contemporaries, to set his foot
in New Amsterdam. His neighbor and friend, J ochem Pieter-
sen Kuyter, had made his peace with Stuyvesant, whom with
two others he had admitted in 1651 into joint ownership with
1 Melyn is also stated to have kept, at this time, a large number of Indians
— more than a hundred in fact — in his service. As these statements come from
his enemies, however, they must be accepted with caution.
IMPRISONMENT OF MELYN
121
himself in his plantation on the Harlem flats, where he was
now actively engaged in restoring his impaired fortunes ; but
in 1654 he was murdered by the Indians at Harlem. Kuy-
ter's widow soon married Willem Jansen, the farmer or super-
intendent of the Harlem plantation, but during the Indian
outbreak in the fall of 1655 she too was killed by the natives.
Kuyter left no children, and his small house at the corner of
Broad and Pearl streets stood for several years vacant and
ownerless, a melancholy memorial of the Indian troubles.
Finally, the crumbling away of the river-bank in front of it
led to action by the magistrates, and a " curator " was ap-
pointed, who, on January 12, 1658, sold the house at public
auction to Hendrick Jansen Vandervin.
As for Cornells Melyn, we find that in the summer of
1655 he was a prisoner in New Amsterdam ; but of the cir-
cumstances leading to this imprisonment, we have no informa-
tion. On the 31st of August of that year, upon a petition of
Melyn's wife, asking that her husband might be removed to a
more convenient place, " on account of his sore leg," the
Council made an order that she might be permitted to remove
him to a more convenient place, " in the City Hall, or else-
where," on condition that he should furnish bail. At this
very time, Director-General Stuyvesant was busy in fitting
out the force with which, on the 5th of September of this
year, he started against the Swedes on the Delaware ; and it
is difficult to avoid the suspicion that he had availed himself
of his military preparations for the purpose of getting his old
adversary into his power.
However this may be, Melyn must have soon returned to
his colony upon Staten Island, for there, in the course of the
Indian hostilities which followed the outbreak of September 15,
1655, at New Amsterdam, he and several members of his
family were made captives by the Indians, and his plantation
was again destroyed. This misfortune was the ruin of
Melyn's prospects upon Staten Island, which was left by the
natives, according to the report of Secretary Van Tienhoven,
"without an inhabitant or a house." The Indians, upon
122 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
this occasion, seem, as a rule, to have treated their prisoners
without much harshness, and soon delivered them up for a
moderate ransom.
No further particulars respecting the prosecution of Cor-
nells Melyn by the New Amsterdam authorities have come
to our notice, but it is evident that he soon abandoned the
colony. In the early part of 1657, he and his son Jacob, hav-
ing repaired to New Haven, there took the oath of allegiance
to the English government. He subsequently went again to
the Netherlands, and there, in June, 1659, for the sum of
1500 guilders, he surrendered his patroonship of Staten Island
to the West India Company. After the fall of Stuyvesant
and the capitulation to the English in 1664, Jacob Melyn
returned to New York, and resided there for a number of
years. His father, Cornells Melyn, was still residing in New
Haven in 1662, but the time of his death is uncertain.
The remaining members of Cornells Melyn's family seem
to have still resided at the house in the easterly half of the
present Broad Street, which, in 1647, he had given to his
daughter Cornelia: her first husband, Captain Jacob Loper,
had died prior to 1653, and she married in that year Jacob
Schellinger, a merchant of Amsterdam, who was carrying on
business in New Netherland, and who, after the retirement of
Cornells Melyn, became the mainstay of the family. Jan-
netje, the wife of Melyn, and his daughter Cornelia and her
husband were for several years engaged in frequent litiga-
tions with Captain Adriaen Pos, the agent of Melyn's co-
partner, the Baron van der Capellen, respecting the division
of the Staten Island property, and the settlement of various
conflicting claims in connection therewith; but it does not
appear that Cornells Melyn, for the space of nearly five years,
again set foot in New Amsterdam, to encounter his old enemy,
Director-General Stuyvesant, — " a tyrant, as we have now
and then been accused by the ignorant," as he complacently
remarks of himself. Melyn was certainly in New Amster-
dam in 1661, however, no doubt protected by his English
citizenship.
THE MELYN HOUSE REMOVED 123
The Melyn house in Broad Street did not remain long in
existence after its builder had quitted it. After the Indian
troubles of 1655 had in some measure subsided, it was de-
cided to open up and to regulate several streets, in order to
afford accommodation to the increasing number of those who
desired to build in the town. One of the changes proposed
in the early part of 1656 was to widen and deepen " The
Ditch," so as to form a canal navigable for small boats, with
a sufficient roadway on each side of it ; this, when completed
by sheathing the sides of the canal with planks, formed the
well-known Heere Graft, which covered the site of the pres-
ent Broad Street, and which was a reminder, in a humble
way, of the Heere Graft in Amsterdam.1
To carry out this work, it became necessary to remove the
house of the Melyn family, and in June, 1656, Jacob Schel-
lingcr, Melyn's son-in-law, was notified not to proceed with
the rest of his immediate neighbors in the construction of
sheet-piling along their respective water-fronts, " as his house
lies in the canal and on the road." A year or two afterwards
it was demolished, and there was given by the burgomasters
to the Melyn family, in partial compensation, a small lot of
ground, only about eighteen feet square, at the southeast
corner of Hoogh Straet (present Stone Street) and the Graft ;
this lot had been gained by the straightening of Hoogh Straet
which took place about this time, the western end of that
street being shifted some twenty or twenty-five feet north-
wards, in order to make it connect more nearly with Brouwer
1 The Heere Graft (or modern Gracht) of Amsterdam, of which a view is given
in this work, is a canal, which with its bordering passageways is about one hun-
dred and fifty English feet in breadth. Beginning and ending at or very near
the Port, sometimes called, not very correctly, the River Y, it extends in a semi-
elliptical curve around a considerable section of the city. A large portion of
the Graft was constructed from about 1610 to 1615, and in the middle of the
seventeenth century it formed the boundary of the city to the eastward, though
a large extent of buildings had grown up to the west of it. The Heere Graft
soon became one of the principal thoroughfares of Amsterdam, and (though
containing no public buildings of much note), it soon came to be a favorite
residence of the principal merchants, bankers, and others of the wealthier portion
of the community.
124 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Straet (or the present Stone Street, west of Broad) ; an
inspection of the locality will show that the lines of these
streets are not continuous at the present time. Here the
Melyns built their second dwelling, a small brick house, and
here some of them resided for many years. Nominally, the
property belonged to the infant children of Captain Jacob
Loper and of Cornelia Melyn,1 but it soon passed into the
hands of other members of the family.
On May 27, 1684, after Jannetje, the widow of Cornells
Melyn, had closed her eventful and troubled life, her eldest
son Jacob received a conveyance of this property through the
administrators of his mother's estate. He did not remain per-
manently in New York, but was engaged in the business of a
leather-dresser in Boston ; and in May, 1697, he sold the house
for £360 to William Bickley, a merchant of the city, who had
previously resided in it for some time as a tenant. It is a
curious fact that this small plot of ground has retained its
dimensions through the vicissitudes of nearly two centuries
and a half, and is to-day occupied by a small and somewhat
dingy brick building with a wealth of rusty iron fire-escapes ;
it appears to have stoutly resisted absorption by the more
imposing structure whose blank walls of yellow brick over-
tower it on two sides.
Just south of this house, along the present Broad Street,
was a small space of ground which belonged to the Melyn
family, and which became available for building purposes
when the Heere Graft was opened and regulated, in 1657
or thereabouts. Here, at a date unknown, but doubtless
within three or four years after the period last mentioned,
a cottage was built which was afterwards occupied for many
years by Isaac Melyn, a younger son of Cornells. Isaac
Melyn appears to have been engaged in shipping ventures
as early as 1672 : he was at that time owner or master of
1 The record of baptisms in the Dutch Church contains the names of two of
the children of Captain Loper; namely, Jacobus, October 25, 1648, and Janne-
ken, October 30, 1650. The daughter Janneken married, October 9, 167-1, Joris
Davidson of Albany : as to the son, see Appendix II. to this volume.
View of tiif Southeast Corner of Broad and Stone Streets.
Showing the sites of the later " Mclyn House " and that of
the poet Jacob Steendam.
SIBOUT CLAESSEN
125
the ship " Expectation," and having a controversy with some
freighters respecting damage occasioned by a leak, he received
the permission of the Governor and Council to have the
cargo unloaded and examined by arbitrators. The Broad
Street premises were sold in 1722 by Joanna, the wife of
Jonathan Dickinson of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, who was
the only surviving child of Isaac Melyn, to William Yer-
planck, a merchant of New York.1
At the time of our survey of New Amsterdam in 1655, a
dwelling-house had been recently built on the south side of
Hoogh Straet, immediately east of the spot upon which the
later, or second, Melyn house was, within a year or two
afterwards erected ; its site is at present covered by the
northerly end of the large building which encloses two sides
of the small Melyn plot, above described.2 The lot upon
which this dwelling-house stood had been sold by Cornelis
Melyn, soon after his return from the Netherlands, in the
early part of 1651, to Sibout Claessen, a carpenter by trade,
from the ancient town of Hoorn, then a famous seaport
upon the Zuyder Zee, some sixteen or eighteen miles north
of Amsterdam. As Director Stuyvesant had, at this time,
caused proceedings to be instituted against Melyn for an
alleged infringement of the revenue laws, under which pro-
ceedings the balance of his land along the East River shore
was afterwards confiscated as above suited,3 he apparently
refused to recognize the validity of Melyn's transfer to
Claessen, and would not allow any deed of the property to
be registered. Claessen, however, not only maintained pos-
session of the premises, but thriftily endeavored to take ad-
vantage of the irregularity, by refusing to pay Melyn the
price agreed upon. Stuyvesant's persecutions seem to have
deterred Melyn for some years from prosecuting his demand
for the purchase-money, and when he finally sued Claessen
1 For further details respecting the family of Cornelis Melyn, see Appendix
II. to this volume.
2 See ante, page 124. 8 See ante, page 120.
126 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
before the Court of the Burgomasters, the cause languished
along for several years, and was not terminated in Melyn's
favor until 1661.
The rear of this lot of Sibout Claessen, which extended to
the shore, was encroached upon by the tides in violent storms ;
and, for the purpose of preventing it from being washed away,
Claessen, first among the owners upon the shore, constructed
a sheet-piling of planks along the bank in the rear of his
premises. This he had done prior to 1654, and upon his
complaint the other owners, as far east as the present Coenties
Alley, were ordered to carry out a similar work along their
respective lots, the burgomasters engaging to construct the
same protection to the shore in front of the Town House.1
1 Sibout Claessen occupied the property on Hoogh Straet (Stone), above de-
scribed, for many years. He had no children, but had married the widow of
Aert Teunissen, a farmer at Hoboken who was killed by the Indians while on a
trading excursion in the vicinity of Sandy Hook, in the year 1643 ; to her two
daughters Wyntje, the wife of Simon Barentsen, and Susanna, wife of Rynier
Willemsen, girls of about seventeen and fourteen years at the time of our survey,
Claessen left his estate, at his death in 1680. In 1646 Claessen received a grant
of about one hundred acres of land, " at the Hook of the Hellegaat called Hoorn's
Hoek." This was a headland on the East River shore, near the foot of the pres-
ent Eighty-ninth Street, and the name is supposed to have been given to it by
Claessen in remembrance of the locality of similar appellation, east of the entrance
to the harbor of his native city of Hoorn. Claessen soon parted with the land
upon the East River, but the name was long familiar ; indeed, it appears upon
a map published as late as 1875 or thereabouts, in the corrupted form of
" Harris' Hook."
CHAPTER XII
JACOB STEENDAM, THE DUTCH POET, AND HIS HOUSE.—
HIS POETICAL WORKS. - " DEN DISTEL VINK." — POEMS ON
NEW NETHERLAND. — HIS LATTER YEARS AT BAT AVI A
Der Christlichen Religion
"War er von hertzen zugethon,
Dieselb zu fiirdern und zu ehren,
Und rechten Gottsdienst zu vermehren.
Das ist der schatz in dieser Welt,
Der ubertrifft alls Gut und Gelt,
Welchen der Rost nit fressen mag,
Er bleibt biss an den Jiingsten Tag.
" Ritter Theurdanck."
ETWEEN the lot of Sibout Claessen and the Town
House, upon the south side of the High Street, lay the
confiscated land of Cornells Melyn. This (after deducting
a portion, which was added to the grounds of the Town
House), had been divided into four parcels, which were sold
to as many different individuals in September, 1651. Of
these parcels, the one next to Claessen 's lot was held at the
time of our survey by Mattheus, or Matthew de Vos, a
respectable notary of the town, who has been previously
mentioned in these sketches.1 In the year 1655 it appears
to have been still vacant and unimproved,2 but the next year
it was sold to Adolph Pietersen, a house carpenter who
seems to have built upon it and occupied it as a residence
for many years.3 Of the remaining parcels of this series the
1 See ante, p. 12.
2 As, by the way, it happens to be at the present time (1900), the lot being
boarded off from the street.
3 This person appears to have been also occasionally employed — possibly
for the convenience of the use of his carpenter's rule — in measuring off parcels
128 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
two nearest to the Town Hall were held in 1655, one by
Sybrant Jansen, sometimes called Galma, — it is uncertain
whether this was as yet built upon ; the other, adjoining the
enclosure of the Town House, was owned by Captain Adriaen
Blommaert, skipper of the West India Company's ship
"New Amsterdam;" it was probably built upon as early as
1655, but the house seems to have stood upon what was
really the rear of the lot, near the shore, so as to enjoy the
immediate proximity of the Town House.
As for the intervening parcel of land, or the one situated
between the lot of Matthew de Vos upon the west and that
of Sybrant Jansen upon the east, it possesses far more of
interest and is in fact one of the historic sites of New
Amsterdam. Here stood, without doubt, the original house
of Burger Jorissen, the smith, erected certainly as early as
1641, and one of the first dwelling-houses, if not the very
first, to be built in the village of New Amsterdam, east of the
present Broad Street. Sold to Cornelis Melyn in 1644, as
already stated,1 it was granted in 1651 as a part of his con-
fiscated estate to Cornelis van Tienhoven, the favored Secre-
tary under Director-General Stuyvesant; and upon the 12th
of October, 1654, it was purchased from Van Tienhoven by
Doctor Jacob Varrevanger for Jacob Steendam, the Dutch
poet, who resided here at the time of our survey.
The passer-by in Stone Street, between Broad Street and
Hanover Square, will, if he have sufficient leisure to look
about him, be quite sure to have his attention directed to a
two story and basement brick dwelling-house standing oddly
in the midst of the dull warehouses of that locality. For a
New York building, the house is ancient, — that is to say,
it was probably erected in the first or second decade of the
nineteenth century. Time has dealt hardly with the edifice
of land for individuals. In this connection he executed, in 1664, immediately-
after the surrender to the English, "a survey" of a small parcel of land for
Burger Jorissen, and in this occurs perhaps the first use of the new name of the
town which can be traced to private citizens. Pietersen's phonetic spelling of
the name was " Nu Iarck."
1 See ante, pp. 104, 105.
STEENDAM'S HOUSE IN STONE STREET 129
in some respects ; its brown-stone doorsteps and window-sills
are crumbling away, and its iron railings are deeply bitten
with rust. The lower portion of the building seems to be
devoted to certain mechanical trades, but the second story
still displays its fringed window-shades and linen-covered
parlor furniture, as it may have done three quarters of a
century ago.1 It is no very violent supposition that this old
house, No. 26 Stone Street, may be the immediate successor
of the original house of Burger Jorissen, as afterwards held
by Cornells Melyn and the Secretary Van Tienhoven. Upon
the Justus Danckers view of New Amsterdam, the period
of which cannot vary much from the year 1650, this build-
ing appears to be clearly shown, and its position being an
isolated one, the representation is likely to approach accu-
racy, at any rate in its essential details. The house thus
depicted is a modest-looking structure of a story and a half
in height; its gable end fronts the road, but it has a door-
way towards the south, looking in the direction of the City
Tavern and of the river, the intervening space being as yet
unoccupied by any buildings.
At the "stoep" before this doorway a slight play of the
imagination will suffice to place us: the elevated railway
and the warehouses on Pearl Street and thence to the river
have all disappeared, and in their place the waves ripple
upon a shingly beach ; at our front the garden extends a
hundred feet or more to the bank overlooking the shore; and
a well with its rude sweep is seen among the vegetable beds
and the currant bushes; to the left of us the Hoogh Straet
stretches for a space, till it is gradually lost as it curves
around the large house and grounds of Govert Loocker-
mans ; 2 between these and the old City Tavern, or Town
1 After the completion of the present work, and in the latter part of 1901, or
in the beginning of 1902, the old building spoken of in the text as occupying the
site of Steendam's house was demolished. The vacant spot upon which it stood
can be seen in the view of the site of the Melyn house at the corner of Broad
and Stone streets, facing page 124 of this work, at the left-hand side of the
print.
2 Situated on the present Hanover Square.
9
130 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Hall, which is backed by a swelling knoll and some forest
trees near the shore, a vista opens far up the dark blue waters
of the East River; across the river (in which, not far from
the shore, a few New England coasters and one or two of the
high-sterned sea ships of the West India Company are lying
at anchor),1 the last rays of a summer sun gild the forests on
the hills of Long Island; and at our side, in a halo of the
smoke of his evening pipe, is the patient, thoughtful, firm,
but somewhat careworn face of Jacob Steendam, long-time
servant of the West India Company, the first poet of New
Netherland, and — if we leave out of view Welde and
Mather's crude metrical version of the Psalms, published
in New England in 1640, and Mrs. Anne Bradstreet's
abstractions, published there at about the same period —
in all probability the earliest poet of North America.2
Jacob Steendam's life had been one of hardship and of
adventure. Like Catullus, he found his haven —
" Multas per gentes, et multa per cequora vectus"
and it was this wandering life that called forth the lines, —
" 0 Steendain ! die door zoo veel zeen,
Een reex van vijftien ronde jaeren
U aen de Maatschappij verbint," —
Thou, Steendam, who o'er many a sea,
In service of the Company,
While fifteen years around have rolled, etc.,
addressed to him by his friend, the Dutch poet, Pieter
Verhoek.
1 In Burger Jorissen's day, in 1641, a drunken gunner, upon one of the
vessels anchored near the shore, did considerable damage to this house, by the
discharge of a shotted cannon in firing a salute.
2 George Sandys, while treasurer of the Colony of Virginia in its early days,
is said to have occupied a portion of his time in preparing his translation of Ovid.
As his stay in the colony was but a limited one, however, and as his works con-
tain nothing relating to America, it is difficult to see why he should be called an
American poet. As for the Rev. "William Morrell, who resided for a very short
time in the Plymouth Colony soon after its foundation, his verses published
after his return to England, about the year 1625, in the pedantic Latin of his
day, and which he called " Nova Anglia," are to be looked upon more as a liter-
ary curiosity than anything else.
ENKHUYSEN
131
According to the best information accessible, Steendam
was born about 1616 in the city of Enkhuysen. This old
town, in the extreme northeastern part of the province of
Holland, and at the entrance to the Zuyder Zee, though
now much decayed, was in Jacob Steendam's time in high
prosperity. Its streets of substantial stone houses were
filled with a busy throng of ship-builders, pilots, seamen, the
fishermen of several hundred herring smacks then owned in
the city, and the numerous artisans and tradesmen supplying
the wants of this maritime population. The little city, too,
was proud of its historic and scientific renown; in 1572 it
was the first town in North Holland to raise the standard of
liberty against the oppression of Spain, and its citizens had
fought valiantly in the Dutch fleets and armies; the ships
built here found their way to all parts of the globe ; one of
them, "The Maid of Enkhuysen," was in the New Amster-
dam trade ; the spirit of geographical research and of explo-
ration became active, and Enkhuysen boasted of several
renowned geographers and naturalists.
The city lay in the midst of a world of waters, extending,
as far as the eye could reach, to the north, east, and south ;
only northwards, across the wide mouth of the Zuyder Zee,
the houses and steeples of the old Frisian city of Staveren
appeared to rise out of the sea : —
" Am fernen Horizonte
Erscheint, wie ein Nebelbild,
Die Stadt, mit ihren Tiirmen
In Abeuddammrung gehullt; "
and far to the east, the light upon the island of Urck shone
dimly through the misty nights upon the Zuyder Zee.
To a mind like that of the young Jacob Steendam, there
must have come many romantic visions, as the Amsterdam
ships passed daily by Enkhuysen on their way to and from
many strange lands, while now and then Dutch men-of-war
or privateers sailed by with their Spanish or Portuguese
prizes. The love of adventure was strong within him, and
132 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
at an early age he went to Amsterdam, where he soon
entered the service of the West India Company.1 But
little is known respecting the position he occupied under
that corporation, nor of his particular travels; when about
twenty -five years of age, however, he was sent, in the inter-
ests of the Company, to the coast of Guinea, and was present
at the taking of Fort Axen or Axem from the Portuguese,
in 1642,2 after which his duties detained him upon the Afri-
can coast till the year 1649, when he appears to have returned
to Amsterdam.3
At least as early as 1636, when not more than twenty
years of age, Steendam had written verses, and about
1649-50 he published a collection of them, called "Den
Distelvink," — "The Thistle-finch, " — which has now be-
come exceedingly rare. This is a little volume of lyrical
pieces, chiefly love songs, poems descriptive of his own perso-
nal experiences and spiritual and devotional verses marked
by a deeply religious feeling which was characteristic of the
man, and which was well alluded to by the Dutch author,
Johan Nieuwhoff, in his eulogistic lines upon Steendam : —
" De gaaven van zyn Geest, in maatzang uitgeleezen,
Verstrecken Godts gemeent een Harp die d'ooren streeld
Met Davids Hemel-taal. Wie kan zijn kunst vollooven?
Des Heeren Lofgezang gaat alle Loff te boven."
1 " Amsterdam,
Waar dat ik jeugdig kwam,
Van u ik lest mijn af-scheijd nam," etc.
2 « w"y hebben kort daar na (met seven kloeke-Schepen),
Den Spek een Fort ontmand ; dat wy met moet angre'pen ;
Waar op ik ben geleyd self in bet oog van Mars," etc.
3 In a poetical epistle, dated at Fort Axem in Guinea, 7 Aug., 1642, to "the
very bright young daughter and poetess Aafje Cornelis, at Enchuysen," Steen-
dam gives several of the details of his journey to Africa. He sailed out of the
Texel on the 11th of October, 1641, with a fleet of twenty-seven sail, bound to
various quarters of the globe, and which narrowly escaped destruction in a severe
storm which overtook them on the 17th of October, off the Isle of Wight. On
December 19, he arrived at the Castle of Delmijn in Guinea.
THE POEMS OF STEENDAM
133
His spirit's gifts divine, set forth in flowing song,
Unto God's people give a harp which charms the ear
With David's heav'nly theme. His art, what song may praise?
The hymn of praise to God transcendeth all our lays.
Many of the poems of Steendam are signed with the whimsi-
cal pseudonym "Noch Vaster," — "still firmer," — which he
seems to have adopted from some fancied appositeness to his
own name, Steendam signifying "stone dam."
His familiarity with nautical affairs gives a flavor of the
sea to many of the verses of Jacob Steendam. In some of
them, which are written with a vigor calling to mind the
sea-verses of Campbell, one can almost hear the salt breeze
whistling through the cordage of the West India Company's
fleet as it sails southwards : —
"Ye ploughers of the ocean
And harrowers of the sea !
The ship Deventer goes before,
And with the Roe sail we.
And the Swan and Hind we see.
To the Guinea coast of Africa we hie,
To the golden Moorish land,
Wherein God's mighty hand
Hath planted our dominion far and nigh." 1
Always, whether upon the sea or the land, the poet finds
some subject of moral reflection. In the "eyndelose wech,"
the endless wake of the ship as she sails through smooth
waters, he sees the swift flowing away of an aimless human
life; in the image of the anchor, he sees the right use of
Time. So, too, hear " The Thistlefinch " singing to the
newly married couple : —
1 " Gij ploegers van den Oceaan
En Eggers in de Zee.
't Schip Deventer wil voor ons gaan,
Wij volgen met de Ree,
De Swaan en Hinde mee;
Ons Oog-wit is Guine
In Africa.
Het goud rijk Moren-land,
Daar God krachtig heeft geplant
Onsen Handel, voor en na."
134 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
" A ship with sturdy timbers
No haven long may stay,
Tho' Neptune's foaming billows
Are roaring on her way ;
But yet she hastens out,
Her tarry tackle shining:
Along her brown hull's sides
A thousand links are twining.
" ' T is patience shows the helmsman
The goal for which he steers,
Tho' Thetis frowns upon him,
And Triton's rage he hears;
Who with his dolphins all
The very clouds is scaling ;
The surly Sun-God too
His face and rays is veiling.
" Now read my hidden meaning :
Ye and the ship are one ;
The waning of affection,
The storm and reefs to shun.
A helmsman is provided,
And youth's bright dreams to cherish ;
The world's ways are the Sea, —
The Gulf where many perish." 1
1 "Een schip seer wel getimmerd
Houd geen havens-stee;
Schoon dat Neptunus schimmerd,
Euyschend op de Ree,
Nochtans het ijld sich uyt
Met s yn bepekte takels ;
En bruyn geverfde huyd,
Gehecht met duysend schakels.
" Geduld vertoond den Stuurman
't Wit daar hy opdoeld
Al siet hem Thetis suur an,
En of Triton woeld;
Die met syn Dollephijn
Tot an de Wolken steygerd
Daar Delius hem sijn
Gesicht en Stralen weygerd.
" Let nu eens op mijn Mening:
Gij dan sijt het schip ;
d' Onheylen, echts-verkl^ning
Is 't onweer en klip;
Den Stuurman is u geeft
En jeugds genegendheden
De Zee (die m^nig vreest)
Vertoond des Werelds zeden."
"DEN DISTELVINK"
135
In one sense, Steendam's name and his favorite poetical
pseudonym are particularly appropriate : there is one quality
conspicuous all through his writings, and it is that of stead-
fastness. Some of his imagery is not of the most delicate
description, and his phrases are occasionally prolix and in-
volved; but the earnestness of the man so illuminates his
work that one would be no more disposed seriously to criti-
cise his verses than those of Wordsworth or of Whittier.
He seems from the very beginning to have kept steadily in
view a plan of progression from higher to higher aims, — a
design which he never lost sight of, and which he has set
forth quaintly in the opening lines of "Den Distelvink."
" Here by the Amstel's stream the Thistlefinch is singing,
As though 't were but to-day he from the nest were winging.
See how the callow bird, with artlessness elate,
Already seeks to pair and blythely calls his mate.
'T is sure that as he chirps so erst his elders sung,
For as the old birds sing, so chirp and pipe the young.
Though with the nightingale's his song may not compare,
He speaks in his own tongue and sings to his own air :
For tender little birds have feeble bills, I trow :
But yet, O loving youths, another tune ye '11 know,
If ye can only wait until his pinions grow,
And upwards to the clouds he '11 soar from earth below." 1
Seven years spent under the tropical sun of Africa had
added more than the years might indicate to the cares of
Jacob Steendam and to his sense of the seriousness of life,
when, in 1649, the long wished-for opportunity arrived for a
1 " Hier singt den Distelvink omtrent des Amstels Stromen,
Als of hy nyt den dop eerst heden was gekomen;
Siet doch het naakte Dier betoont syn blyden aart,
Het soekt en smeekt syn helft, en wenscht te zijn gepaart;
't Is seker so het pijpt ook eerst sijn ouders songen
Want so den ouden singt so pijpen ook de jongen.
Schoon dat het niet en queelt gelijk den Nachtegaal,
Het singt op sijn manier en spreekt sijn e}Tgen taal,
Want sachte vogeltjes die hebben weeke nebben;
Ghy suit (o soete jeucht) een ander deuntje hebben
Indien gij wachten kunt, tot dat het veeren krygt
En van de aerd ora hooch tot door de wolken stijgt."
136 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
return to the Netherlands. His health had suffered in the
pestilential climate of the country, — "this poisonous Africa,"
as he calls it;1 and he tells in his verses of the confused
visions of "the World, the Flesh, and the Devil," which
crowded upon him in the delirious hours of his fevers.
Then, too, he suffered in one of the strongest attachments of
his devoted nature, in the breaking up of the companionship
between himself and his close friend Johannes Foullon, one
of the principal mercantile agents in Africa of the West
India Company, — a young man of about the poet's age, who
returned to Holland in 1645. Many of Steendam's verses
are addressed to this friend.
Jacob Steendam seems to have reached the Netherlands in
the early part of the year 1649, for on or about the 21st of
July of that year the first part of "Den Distelvink " was
published at Amsterdam, and on the 20th of November of
the same year, the second part of the work was published
at the same place, while the third and concluding portion
appeared on the 6th of July, 1650. Prior to this latter date
Steendam seems to have been married to Sara de Rosschou,
whose praises he had sung in some of the verses of the last
part of "Den Distelvink."
About the year 1652, Steendam arrived at New Amster-
dam, but whether he was still in the employment of the
West India Company is not known. In July, 1653, he
purchased a small house and lot in Pearl Street directly
under the walls of the fort, and here he appears to have
resided for a short time, till he acquired, in the following
year, the house upon Hoogh Straet, above described, which
was his residence at the period of our survey. Besides the
above parcels of land in New Amsterdam, Steendam owned
for a time a house and garden upon the east side of Broad-
way, about midway between the present Beaver Street and
1 " Hy sal u (beliouden) brengen
Uyt dit giftig Africa;
Hy sal u de tijd verlengen,
Tot in 't oud-Batavia," etc.
STEENDAM IN NEW AMSTERDAM 137
Exchange Place, and a garden spot, or piece of vacant
ground, of about half an acre in extent, on the north side
of the then recently laid out Prinse Straet (now forming an
easterly extension of Beaver Street), between the present
Broad and William streets.
As to Steendam's occupation while in New Amsterdam,
but little is known. A bill for a dozen cushions, supplied
by him to the burgomasters of the town for their use in the
Town Hall, has been taken as an evidence that he was in
possession of the trade of an upholsterer, but this is a mere
conjecture, and he calls himself indeed upon several occasions,
a "trader." Like most of the citizens of New Amsterdam
who possessed some capital, however, he was interested in
farming operations, and soon after his arrival he became the
proprietor of a plantation at Amersfoort upon Long Island,
and of a tract of about thirty acres, doubtless woodland,
upon the shore of the Mespat Kill, at present known as
Newtown Creek. He seems to have been a prosperous man,
and several mortgages to him appear upon the records during
his sojourn in New Netherland.
Steendam remained about eight years in New Amsterdam,
returning to the Netherlands in the latter part of the year
1660, as nearly as can be ascertained. He was deeply
interested in the affairs of the Colony, and he deplored the
neglected state into which it had been suffered to fall,
between the indifference of the Dutch government on the
one hand, and the failing circumstances of the West India
Company on the other. It was with a view to excite public
attention in the Netherlands to this condition of things that
in 1659 Steendam sent there his first poem on the affairs of
the Colony; this was called "The Complaint of New Am-
sterdam to her Mother." After his return to Amsterdam,
and about the year 1661, he published a poem of some
length, entitled "The Praise of New Netherland," dedicated
to Cornelis van Ruyven, then Secretary of the Colony, and
this was followed in 1662, or soon thereafter, by a third poem,
bearing the odd appellation of " Prikkel-Versen " (which has
138 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
been well rendered as "Spurring Verses"), and designed for
the purpose of urging on a proposed attempt by the city of
Amsterdam to plant a colony on the Delaware River, upon
land granted for that purpose by the West India Company.
At the period of Jacob Steendam's residence in New
Amsterdam, the creative powers of nature were still in full
operation in the immediate vicinity of the settlement. A
walk of ten minutes from his home brought him to rural
solitudes along the Maagde Paetje, or Maiden Lane ; a walk
of less than an hour brought him to the primeval forest
beyond Director Stuyvesant's bouwery. The sight of the
bountiful gifts of nature, open to all, seems to have inspired
him with a wonderful confidence in the future of the land.
The prospect was undisturbed by the troublesome questions
of a vast and increasing proletarian population ; of boundless
municipal and private extravagance; of an army of non-tax -
paying professional politicians, drawing their support from
the tax-paying classes ; of enormous taxes, draining the life-
blood from trade and commerce ; and of vice too great for the
police power adequately to cope with. All these problems
were far distant; the virtues and vices of the community
were those of an infant state of society. Many of the people
were poor, but those who were able and willing to labor
could easily supply their simple wants, even though it were
" Met suppaan en Harte vleysch," —
with suppaan and venison ; and all might reasonably expect
materially to better their condition.
Steendam exulted in the land and in its capabilities; at
the edges of the uplands, from under the roots of the beeches
and alders, a thousand springs of the purest water gushed
forth ; around the settlement lay, in all directions, the virgin
soil, "red, white, blue, and black," possessing the most
varied qualities; everywhere he saw the "kills" rolling their
full streams through the woods; all these it was his delight
to extol in his verse. He had perhaps looked from the
STEENDAM'S LOVE OF NATURE
139
Bergen Heights upon the waving sea of reeds extending to
the forest-clad hills far away to the west ; upon the beach at
Corlaer's Hoek, he had wandered among the great boulders
of gneiss and sandstone and trap, the detritus of the glacial
age; from his house upon the East River shore he had often
watched the great forests of Long Island beyond the sand
bluffs ; these, too, all appeared in his song. He was a close
observer of the exuberant animal and vegetable life around
him : from his own door he had seen the stately flight of the
eagle, or the poising of the hawk over the East River, and
the tumbling of the porpoises in the bay; in sheltered coves
along the shores of "the Company's Bouwerys " and their
meadows, the wild ducks and geese swam in their seasons;
at the edges of the swamps along "Bestevaars Killetje," back
of Director Van Twiller's tobacco fields, and not far per-
haps from where Washington Square now is, the wild tur-
keys fed; quail started up before him in the pastures along
the Bouwery Lane; in the thickets upon the Sand Hills
the partridge whirred past him ; and as he rambled along the
banks of the "Great Kill," the otter slid into the water
before him; the raccoon and fox, the marten and the mink,
the rabbits, and the flying-squirrels, "leaping through the
air," — he tells of them all.
Everywhere, too, in the autumn woods, he saw the nut
trees, with the ground beneath them covered with their
ungathered stores ; in the common pasture fields and in the
newly cleared lands, in early summer, he admired the profu-
sion of the strawberries, " which in proud scarlet shine ; " in
hedgerows and waste spots, — likely enough along Secretary
Van Tienhoven's lane, where narrow and dingy Ann Street
now is, — he had gathered the bark and the tender shoots of
the medicinal sassafras in early spring, or the wild cherries
in late summer; in the wet borders by Maagde Paetje, mint
and catnip, tansy and the bee -haunted thyme grew thickly;
and the gardens of the colonists were filled with kitchen
vegetables without limit. To Steendam's enthusiastic mind,
the whole country was a garden, and he sings : —
140 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
" Siet, mijn tuyn leyd an twee Stromen
Die van 't Oost, en 't Noorden komen,
En haar storten in de Zee,
Visch-rijk boven alien Mee."
North and east two streams supplying,
'Twixt the two my garden lying ;
Here they pour into the sea,
Rich with fish, beyond degree.
The teeming life of the waters, in fact, excites his special
admiration, and he tells of the shad and the striped bass, of
the sea bass and the blackfish, of the crabs, lobsters, mussels,
and oysters, —
" So large that one, in size, exceedeth three
Of those of Europe."
Even the humble sunfish and perch of the Kolck pond are
not forgotten.
In his close observation of nature (more than in his facility
of expression), Steendam has something of kin to Robert
Burns, and he could have well appreciated the Scotchman
when he sings : —
"Ev'n winter bleak has charms for me
When winds rave thro' the naked tree ;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
Are hoary gray ;
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,
Darkening the day.
" O Nature ! a' thy shows an' forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms !
Whether the simmer kindly warms
Wi' life an' light,
Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night ! "
Upon such a night — perhaps in the year of grace 1655 —
Jacob Steendam sits in his armchair, meditatively contem-
plating a blazing hickory log which lies in the ample fire-
place of his house on Hoogh Straet: —
" 't is noten-hout dat niemand heeft geplant,' —
STEENDAM RETURNS TO HOLLAND 141
nut-wood, planted by no human hand! Outside, the wind
whistles about the exposed dwelling; the snow drives
through the dark street, where the shuttered windows give
no light; and he hears the waves of the East River dash-
ing with freezing spray upon the stones of the beach below
the piling back of his house ; but within doors the blaze of
the odoriferous wood grows brighter and hotter, and he
exclaims: —
" Wiens heete vlam geen vocht noch koude wijkt,
Wiens geur, en reuk, (vol angenaamheyt), lijkt
Na Eden's velden."
Whose genial flame yields to no damp nor cold,
Whose odors fragrant are as those of old,
In fields of Eden.
The house upon Hoogh Straet was sold by Steendam in
September, 1656, to Jan Cornelissen van Hoorn, the ancestor
of the Van Home family of the Colony. The poet remained
several years longer in New Netherland, however, and for a
time, about the year 1657, he is said to be " at present resid-
ing in New Haven," but as to the business which took him to
that place, and as to the length of his sojourn there, we
have no information ; but in the summer of 1660 we find him
preparing to return with his family to Amsterdam. He now
entered into the employment of the Dutch East India Com-
pany, and in 1666 he sailed from Amsterdam for Batavia on
the island of Java, the emporium of the Dutch colonies in
the eastern seas, he having received the appointment of Zie-
kentrooster, or visitor and consoler of the sick at that place,
— an inferior ministerial office in the church. At Batavia,
Steendam was chosen, in 1668, governor of the Orphans'
House in that city, and he held that office for several years,
still exercising occasionally his poetical gifts, for he pub-
lished here another collection of lyrical pieces, called " Zeede
Zangen voor de Batavische Jonkheit," — "Moral Songs for
the Batavian Youth."
Here, then, Jacob Steendam ended his days amid strange
142 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
and unfamiliar scenes. As he walked down the broad Keere
Straet of that rising city, he could catch glimpses, on either
hand, of canals with their bordering roadways, as he had
often seen them at Amsterdam or at Rotterdam, but where
the low-roofed Dutch houses which lined them were oddly
overtopped by tufted palm-trees, and the canals themselves
bore uncouth names, such as the Lion's Graft, the Tiger's
Graft, or the Crocodile's Graft. In the crowded market-place
he saw, besides the Dutch and Portuguese from Europe,
men of the varied races of southeastern Asia, — Chinese and
Malays, Siamese and Cambodians, natives of Sumatra and
of the Spice Islands, with the fat, sleepy-looking Javanese;
occasionally perhaps a military detachment would pass him,
on its way to some service or another in the island, where the
Dutch soldiers, with their heavy muskets and with their
field artillery, contrasted strangely with the long-haired,
turbaned Amboynese auxiliaries, in the pay of the East
India Company, bearing murderous-looking scimitars and
oblong shields almost as huge as those which Jacob Steen-
dam's ancestors had carried, when under the leadership of
Civilis they had slaughtered the Roman legions sixteen
centuries before.
Every day, when the morning breeze sprang up, a crowd
of vessels sailed into the port, as they had thronged by
Enkhuysen with a favoring wind in Steendam's younger
days ; but here the Dutch ships were mingled with Chinese
junks, and with all the extraordinary forms of naval archi-
tecture made use of by the islanders. Looking landwards
from the city walls, the broad plantations of rice and of
sugar-cane which stretched away towards the dark mountains
of Java, lay in a quivering haze in that climate where
" "With fearful power the noonday reigns,
And the palm-trees yield no shade."
The slow flow of the Jacatara River through the heart of the
city may have served to recall to Steendam memories of the
Amstel and of Amsterdam; but there was little to bring to
STEENDAM'S FAMILY
143
his mind his house upon the East River shore at New
Amsterdam, and that New Netherland of which he had
sung : —
" Dit is het Land daar Melk en Hoenig vloeyd ;
Dit is 't geweest daar 't Kruyd, (als Dist'len) groeyd ;
Dit is de Plaats daar Arons-Roede bloeyd ;
Dit is het Eden."
This is the land where milk and honey flow ;
Where wholesome herbs freely as thistles grow ;
The land where Aaron's Rod its buds doth show ;
A very Eden !
Jacob Steendam appears to have died at Batavia in 1671,
or soon thereafter, when his wife was continued in the super-
vision of the Orphans' House at that place. Upon the death
of the latter in 1673, her daughter Vredegond succeeded to
the same position, though very young. This daughter of
Steendam, who was baptized in the Dutch Church at New
Amsterdam, April 4, 1655, was in all probability born in
the house upon Hoogh Straet, above described. Besides her,
Steendam had two other children baptized in the Dutch
Church during his sojourn at New Amsterdam; namely,
Samuel, on November 18, 1657, and Jacob, on December 4,
1658; whether the sons reached maturity is not known.1
1 Most of the scanty particulars we have respecting the life of Steendam have
heen gathered by Mr. Henry C. Murphy, and are given in his valuable mono-
graph on the anthology of New Netherland.
CHAPTER XIII
JACOB VAN COUWENIIOVEN AND HIS BREWERY.— PRINSE
STRAET, AND "THE GARDENS." — SLYCK STEEGH, OR
MILL LANE. — THE BARK MILL. — DOMINIE MICHAELIS
AND THE FIRST DUTCH CHURCH. — EVERT DUYCKINK
" Holland ! Holland ! See, we sever
Like a fleet, each wending ever
Towards his fore-appointed place.
Farewell, farewell ! whate'er betide us
This we know, that God will guide us,
Whom we pray'd to be beside us ;
Praised be His grace !
Amsterdam,
Where in my youth I came,
From you my last departure I must tell ;
And all my friends together, fare ye well,
I leave you, in God's name ! "
EARLY opposite the house of Jacob Steendam, upon
X Hoogh Straet, and occupying a part of the site of the
building which stands upon the northeast corner of the present
Broad and Stone streets, but fronting upon the latter street,
stood at the time of our survey a house belonging to Jacob
Wolfertsen van Couwenhoven. This man, with his two
brothers, Peter and Gerrit, were the sons of Wolfert Gerrit-
sen, of Amersf oort, a town of considerable size, about twenty-
five miles southeast of Amsterdam, and a few miles south of
the Zuyder Zee. That town had suffered grievously in 1629
from its occupation by an Austro-Spanish army, in the drag-
ging war which Spain was vindictively carrying on against the
United Provinces, and there is strong probability that it was
this misfortune that led Wolfert Gerritsen and his sons to seek
Translated from Steendam's " Den Distelviuk.'
JACOB VAN COUWENHOVEN 145
a home in New Netherland in the following year. The sons
themselves at this time would seem to have been men of mature
years; at any rate, Jacob van Couwenhoven was familiarly
known about the town, in 1655, as " old Jacob." The father,
for several years prior to 1639, hired one of the newly cleared
farms of the West India Company,1 being the one commonly
known as "Bouwery No. 6," the farmhouse of which stood
upon the east side of the present Chatham Square, its land
lying generally between the present Division Street and the
river shore.
The brothers appear to have been men endowed with gen-
erous and kindly dispositions; and in 1646, after the death of
their father, and of their brother Gerrit, when they came to
divide their slender patrimony, they allowed, by an agreement
which is still extant, to Jan, one of the young children of their
deceased brother, 100 guilders more than to the others,
"because he has not as good health as the others, and is weak
in his limbs, and to all appearance will not be a stout man."
Amersfoort, the native town of the Van Couwenhoven
brothers, with its great church spire towering high above a
picturesque landscape of hill and dale, — quite different from
the general character of the scenery of the Netherlands, —
was, in the seventeenth century, the seat of an active transit
trade of tobacco, beer, malt grains, etc., between the Nether-
lands and Germany ; barges from Amsterdam and from all the
ports of the Zuyder Zee sailing up the small river Eem to the
town, whence a short land carriage brought their freight to the
banks of the Rhine. Many of the inhabitants of Amersfoort
were familiar with the brewer's trade, and among these was
Jacob van Couwenhoven. He appears to have had the design,
from an early day, of establishing a brewery in New Amsterdam,
1 His first employment was at Rensselaerswyck, near Albany, where for a time
he was superintendent of farms for the patroon Van Rensselaer. After coming
to New Amsterdam, he was one of the purchasers, in 1636, of a tract of land from
the Indians at what is now known as Flatlands, south of Brooklyn, but to which
he gave the name of New Amersfoort. His lands here, after his death, passed
to his sons, and the descendants of his son, Gerrit, under the name of Couwen-
hoven, or Kouwenhoven, are still numerous upon the western end of Long Island.
10
146 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
and for this purpose, as early as 1645, he had obtained from
Director-General Kieft, the grant of " a lot for a dwelling-
house, brewery, and garden, lying behind the public inn."
This was a plot of ground of about sixty-five English feet
front, by more than one hundred feet in depth, situated also
on Hoogh (Stone) Straet, and a couple of hundred feet east of
the parcel we are more particularly describing. Here, Jacob
van Couwenhoven commenced operations by building for
himself a substantial stone dwelling-house ; by the time this
was completed, he found himself so heavily in debt, — the
unusual sum, for those days, of about 3,500 guilders, or
$1,400 on his house alone, — that his brewery project was
deferred, perforce, for a number of years. Van Couwen-
hoven was, in fact, an inveterate speculator, and wherever
any piece of property was offered for sale at what he thought
was a " bargain," such as the old church building near the
shore, or the old horse mill property upon Slyck Steegh (now
South William Street) back of his house, he stood ready to
buy it, without the least regard to his ability to pay for it.
It was perhaps in this way that he had become, prior to 1654,
possessed of the plot of ground we are more particularly
describing, at the corner of " the Ditch " and of Hoogh
Straet : that piece of land had been originally granted to one
Antony Jansen, but had been abandoned by him and allowed
to become, as the records express it, " a stinking pool," and
in 1646 it had been regranted to the prominent shipping
merchant, Govert Loockermans, who was a brother-in-law of
Jacob van Couwenhoven, their wives being sisters. Hester
Jansen, the wife of Jacob van Couwenhoven, had died seem-
ingly in the early part of the year 1655, and he, with his
family of four or five young children, still occupied the stone
house down Hoogh Straet at the time of our survey, while
the plot at the corner of the present Broad Street, upon which
a brick dwelling-house had been built, probably either by
Govert Loockermans or by Jacob van Couwenhoven himself,
was at this time occupied by the mother of his deceased wife.
Adjoining this latter house, upon the east, stood, in 1655,
VAN COUWENHOVEN'S BREWERY 147
two small houses owned by Mighiel Paulussen, who followed
the occupation of a carter. The westernmost of these was
hired out to different tenants, and in the latter part of 1655
became the abode of Joseph d'Acosta, one of the Portuguese
Jews, whose rough reception at New Amsterdam in the previ-
ous year has been already alluded to ; 1 the easternmost of the
two houses was occupied by Paulussen himself ; he was from
Vraendoren, in the Netherlands, and had married, in 1640,
Maria, daughter of Joris Rappalje, who with her elder sister
Sara are supposed to have been almost the first children of
European extraction who were born in the colony. 2
It was upon the site of these latter houses, adjoining his
own plot, which lay to the west, that Jacob van Couwen-
hoven about this time determined to erect his long-planned
brewery. There was a good well upon the premises which
was probably an object to him in his undertaking, and which
possibly still exists under the buildings at present covering
the site. In the course of the next year, 1656, he had made
arrangements with Paulussen for the acquisition of the
ground and houses of the latter; the buildings were de-
molished or removed, and here, upon the site of the present
Nos. 27 and 29 Stone Street, Van Couwenhoven commenced
the erection of his brewery, which was a substantial edifice
of stone, and evidently of considerable size, for it is usually
spoken of, in the records, as "the great stone brew-house."
All this time he was greatly hampered by his debts : in Au-
gust, 1656, one of his creditors, Pieter Jacobsen Marius, made
an application to the burgomasters that Van Couwenhoven
should be required to sell some of his property, and apply
the proceeds to the liquidation of his debts ; " otherwise," the
petitioner says, " he knows not when he shall obtain his own."
Van Couwenhoven appeared and stated to the burgomasters
that he had already placed in the hands of the Schout, or
bailiff, his deed of the old church property upon the strand
1 See ante, page 85.
2 The claims of Jan Vinje to the honor of having heen the first white child
born in New Netherland will be considered farther on.
148 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
(purchased by him only three or four weeks before), to be
held as security. As Jacob was one of the oldest citizens,
generally well esteemed, and prominent in the church (he
had been, in 1647, one of the church-wardens, in conjunc-
tion with Director-General Stuyvesant, and Jan Jansen
Damen, specially chosen to complete the church edifice in
the fort), the burgomasters were loath to adopt extreme
measures ; he was therefore notified by the magistrates to sell
his property at private sale, and satisfy his creditors within
fourteen days, or in default thereof, the Schout would be
ordered to sell the same at public auction. Under this spur,
he sold the old church lot, on the 8th of September, 1656, to
Isaac de Foreest, and in December of the same year he sold
at public auction his stone house, a little farther down Hoogh
Straet, to Nicholas de Meyer, after which he seems to have
taken up his residence upon his lot, at the corner of the
present Broad Street, adjoining his as yet unfinished brewery.
He was still heavily embarrassed, however, but in the latter
part of 1656, we find his friend, Isaac de Foreest, coming
forward to assist him. De Foreest presented at that time a
petition to the Director-General and Council, for permission
to contract in advance with Jacob van Couwenhoven for all
the beer the latter could brew in the space of a year, " so
that such a well-situated brewery as that " (of Van Couwen-
hoven), "may not be abandoned, but to the contrary may
become the means to maintain decently that man with his
family, while otherwise his ruin might be unavoidable."
These various measures seem to have been of no more than
temporary relief. In September, 1655, " old Jacob " had mar-
ried Magdalentje Jacobse ; his first wife's children seem to
have been possessed of some property which was in their
father's hands and which was deemed by their other relatives
to be in jeopardy; for upon January 3, 1657, Pieter van
Couwenhoven his brother, and Govert Loockermans, the hus-
band of his late wife's sister, make an application to the
Council for the appointment of guardians for the children,
alleging that Jacob " has been inclined to enter into second
VAN COUWENHOVEN'S BREWERY
149
nuptials, and is grossly encumbered with several heavy debts,
which he is daily increasing."
Jacob van Couwenhoven treated with contempt, however,
the demand of the guardians for an accounting : he could not
keep track of his own affairs; how then could they expect
him to know anything about those of any one else. The
guardians were forced to report to the Council that although
they had " strained every nerve," they could get no account
from Jacob of his situation : an order of Council for his arrest
followed promptly, but, as nothing further appears, it is to be
presumed that Van Couwenhoven patched up some kind of
an account of his children's estate.
The brewery was finished, probably by 1657, but the affairs
of its proprietor were apparently hopelessly involved, and by
the year 1663 Van Couwenhoven had surrendered his brew-
ery and its contents to his creditors ; the latter appear to have
permitted Jacob to operate the brewery for several years, but
in December, 1670, some months after Jacob van Couwen-
hoven's death, his executors conveyed the property to several
individuals, — OlofT van Cortlandt, Johannes van Brugh, Cor-
nells van Borsum, in right of Sara Kiersted, his wife, and Hen-
drick Vandewater, who appear to have been a sort of syndicate
of creditors.
Upon the westerly side of the house and brewery of Jacob
van Couwenhoven, a narrow and irregular passageway ran,
in 1655, along the ditch occupying the middle of the present
Broad Street; and the grants of land along it infringed
largely — in some cases to the extent of twenty feet or more
— upon what we now know as Broad Street.1 At the period
mentioned, four houses had been built along the easterly side
of this passageway : of these, it will be sufficient to indicate
in a general way the sites and the owners' names, as none
of the latter were of particular prominence. At the north
1 In 1670 the Court of Burgomasters made an order that the fence of Van
Couwenhoven's property here " should be drawn back and set on the common
line " of the street.
150 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
corner of the present South William Street stood the house
of Adriaen Vincent, who in 1649 is spoken of as " late cadet
in the company's service," and as having come from " Aecken,"
which is perhaps a village of that name, some six or seven
English miles from the old city of Ghent. Vincent had ac-
quired this plot of land and built here about 1646.
About forty feet farther north was the house of Simon
Felle, a Frenchman from Dieppe in Normandy who in 1652 had
purchased a house and a small plot of ground from Adrieen
Vincent : four years later he married Anneken Vincent of
Amsterdam, a relative, either sister or daughter of Adriaen.
Fifty feet more intervened between this house and that of
Abram Rycken, one of the older colonists, and the ancestor of
the Riker family of the present day ; he had built here as
early as 1647. A similar interval brings us to the house of
Jochem Beekman, a shoemaker, which stood near the corner
of a narrow cross-road, later known as Prinse Straet, and
which, somewhat widened, exists to day as an easterly exten-
sion of Beaver Street ; Beekman had purchased a small plot
here from Abram Rycken, and had built in or about 1652.
As for the Prinse Straet, it and a line a few rods north of
the present Beaver Street, west of Broad, formed the southerly
limit of the West India Company's reserved parcel of pasture-
ground, which has already been spoken of 1 as having been
leased to Jan Jansen Damen in the spring of 1638 : upon the
termination of that lease, 1644, the Director and Council de-
termined to grant portions of the land in building plots, and
for that purpose the narrow Prinse Straet was laid out along
the southern bounds of the field. At the period of our sur-
vey the street apparently contained but two houses : one was
upon the north side, and about eighty-five feet east of the
present Broad Street ; it had been built about the year 1652
by Albert Pietersen, from Hamburgh, a trumpeter in the
service of the West India Company. The other house stood
upon the south side of the street about fifty feet from Broad
Street, and belonged to Lourens Petersen, who had found
1 See ante, page 9.
THE TUYNEN OR " GARDENS "
151
his way to New Amsterdam from the seaport of Tonsberg
at the mouth of the Christiania Fiord in Norway. The
house is mentioned as standing here as early as 1647. Be-
yond this point, the old pasture-field had been recently
broken up into plots of about one-half acre each, which
in 1654 had been granted to several of the magnates of the
settlement, — to Nicasius de Sille, member of the Council, to
Secretary Van Tienhoven, to Carel van Brugge, late commis-
sary at Fort Orange, and to Dominie Samuel Drisius. These
plots extended up to the present Wall Street, and were not
as yet improved at the time of our survey : they were the tuy-
nen or gardens ; and a few years afterwards, when the pres-
ent Exchange Place was laid out through them, it was called
by the Dutch, Tuyn Straet, and by the English subsequently,
Garden Street.
Back of the house and brewery of Jacob van Couwenhoven
ran a narrow lane, not very agreeable to the eye, perhaps, in
the seventeenth century, but of considerable interest at the
present day, in the widened and somewhat extended form
under which it is known as South William Street. It is of
especial interest because it is one of the earliest and quite
probably the very earliest of the Dutch thoroughfares re-
maining as originally located. Its origin can be traced
back clearly to the year 1625 or 1626, — to a period when
there was as yet no occasion for a road along the East River
shore, when Broad Street was a swamp and nothing more, —
when Beaver and Marketfield, Stone and Bridge streets had
not been thought of, and when the site of Broadway was
covered with trees and bushes.
When the first Dutch vessels arrived in 1625, with agri-
cultural colonists for Manhattan Island and for its immediate
vicinity, they brought with them over one hundred head of
cattle, besides a considerable number of horses, sheep, and
hogs. As the few inhabitants of the place, who for the pre-
vious thirteen or fourteen years had been clustered about the
log block-house under Hendrick Corstiaensen's command,
152 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
were mostly Indian traders, depending for their sustenance
upon supplies from the neighboring Indians and from the
Netherlands, they had not engaged in agriculture, and in all
probability the island was still in an uncleared condition,
almost up to the blockhouse itself, since the wood which the
inhabitants needed for building purposes or for fuel would
naturally, owing to the difficulties of land carriage, have been
floated or brought by boat from points along the shores.
There being no place in which the cattle of the new colonists
could be securely kept upon Manhattan Island, we are in-
formed that on their arrival they were at first landed upon
Nutten, now Governor's Island, and allowed to roam at large
there until a proper enclosure could be constructed for them
upon the island of Manhattan. The necessary clearing and
enclosure was commenced at once, and was without doubt the
tract of ground extending from a short distance north of the
line of the present Beaver Street to a line about forty or
fifty feet north of the present Wall Street, which latter limit
marked the southern boundary of the Vinje or Damen farm,
which must have been soon established after the period above
mentioned. It is uncertain whether this enclosure extended
farther west than the present Broadway, though it is quite
probable that it reached the North River shore : upon the
east it probably extended a short distance east of the present
William Street. This tract, or the portion of it east of
Broadway, formed the reserved land or pasture of the West
India Company, which, as we have seen (ante, page 9), was
in 1638 leased to Jan Jansen Damen, having been then
supplanted by the later pasture-ground, or " commons," now
forming the City Hall Park and its vicinity.
The land thus enclosed, however, was nearly cut in twain
by the as yet undrained swamp along the present Broad
Street, and a passageway became necessary to the eastern
portion of the enclosure ; from the rude bridge thrown across
the brook which drained the swamp, a narrow lane led along
the line of the present South William Street, and turning
northwards near the spot now occupied by the western end of
THE SLYCK STEEGH
153
the well-known Delmonico building which stands at the in-
tersection of South William and Beaver streets, it reached
the pasture at a point a little north of the line of the latter
street. The northern turn to this lane became unnecessary
after the opening of Smith's Street (present William Street)
in 1656 or 1657, and that portion of it was granted within a
few years thereafter to private parties. It is shown, upon
" the Duke's Plan " of 1661, and upon the Nicoll plan of 1668,
as still partially open, but built upon and obstructed. After
Hoogh (Stone) Straet had become a thoroughfare along the
river, an opening was made from the lane into the latter
street, and this still exists under the name Mill Street or Lane,
a mere open passageway between two buildings.
As might be supposed, this narrow lane running through
low ground and trodden at first by the negro wood-choppers
and bark-gatherers of the West India Company, then by the
cattle driven to and from the pasture field, and eventually
abutted upon by the rear of the houses and lots along Hoogh
Straet, was never considered a particularly choice locality. It
was not until 1672 that it was ordered to be paved, and then
apparently only with foot-paths. In the Oude Zyd, or old
quarter of the City of Amsterdam, there was a narrow street
of just about the same length as this lane, running between
two of the canals of the city. It was situated in a district
replete with interesting associations ; standing at the western
end of this street, where it opened upon the canal known as
the Achter Burg Wal, one saw at his left several ancient
buildings whose arched gateways opened into spacious en-
closures,— these were relics of the old Romanist days, two
convents long before suppressed and converted into a portion
of the Great Hospital of Amsterdam ; beyond them was the
old church of the Knights Templars, and the ancient Turf
Market ; these edifices and grounds half surrounded another
building, of a very different character, on the opposite side of
the Achter Burg Wal canal and at its termination; it was
the famous Heerelogement, — the City Hostelry, open to none
but persons of standing and distinction ; its capacious quad-
154 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
rangle stood surrounded by moats like a fortress, and was ap-
proached over an arched bridge. To the right of the observer,
across the same canal, was another famous building, — the
ancient convent of St. Cecilia, changed in the year 1594 to
another hostelry of exclusive character, known as the Prins-
senhof, which was associated with the names of many per-
sons of distinction who had sojourned there : prominent among
these were Marie de Mddicis, Queen of France, and her beau-
tiful but unfortunate daughter, Henrietta Maria, wife of
Charles I., King of England. The other, or eastern end of this
street, also opened out upon noteworthy localities: immedi-
ately to the right were the walls of the Oude Mannen Huys,
or Home for the Aged, — one of the noble charities of the
good Hester Klaas, in the sixteenth century ; while at the
distance of two or three blocks to the left stood the Dol Huys,
or Hospital for the Insane, — likewise a sixteenth-century
foundation ; and beyond this was the great house of the East
India Company.
Notwithstanding the proximity of its lofty neighbors, how-
ever, the little street in question remained very unassuming
indeed, and had received the humble appellation of Slyck
Straet, or the Muddy Street. It was perhaps in remembrance
of this street at home — since nearly every street in New
Amsterdam bore the name of a corresponding street in the
old city — that the lane we have been describing received the
designation of Slyck Steegh. When the English began to
come into the town, after the surrender in 1664, the names of
the streets were changed or modified in many instances. The
Slyck Steegh is spoken of in certain deeds about the year 1679
as " Dirty Lane," and about 1683, as " the Mude Street." Al-
though Dirty Lane was a familiar, not to say prominent, London
street in the seventeenth century,1 the name never became
1 " He mounted synod-men, and rode 'em
To Dirty Lane and Little Sodom," etc.
[Butler's Hudibras, Part IL, Canto i., 367.]
In 1830, besides the historic "Dirty Lane" of "Hudibras," — in Southwark,
near the notorious " Mint," — there was another street, with the same official desig-
THE OLD BARK MILL
155
popular in New York, and the Slyck Steegh gradually came
to be called, from the horse-mill upon it (of which we shall
speak), Mill Street or Lane. It retained this name till about
1832,1 when it was extended through into William Street, and
its former historic name was changed to the singularly inap-
propriate one of South William Street.
However uninviting the Slyck Steegh may have been from
an aesthetic point of view, New Yorkers should not forget that
upon its northern side was erected, in 1626, the earliest build-
ing in New Amsterdam, of which the site can be pointed out at
the present day. By a communication from the colony in
the above year,2 it is stated that Francois Molemaecker (the
mill-wright) is employed in the construction of a horse mill,
with a spacious room, to accommodate a large congregation,
and it was at that time also proposed to add to it a tower, in
which the bells captured by the Dutch and brought from Porto
Kico were to be hung. This mill, with its small belfry tower,
the conical roof of which can be distinguished in the Justus
Danckers View of New Amsterdam, of about 1650, was erected
upon the north side of the lane afterwards known as the Slyck
Steegh, and upon ground at present covered by the buildings
Nos. 32 and 34 South William Street, occupied as a wine
storehouse. The mill, which was one of three erected by the
West India Company at its new settlement,3 was employed in
the grinding of bark to be used for tanning purposes, and its
location near the edge of the Broad Street swamp was doubt-
less determined by the availability of the ground for tan pits.
Here, then, in the loft, or upper story of the bark mill, in
nation, in the Strand, near the Savoy, and still anothe1* one in Shoreditch, not
very far from St. Leonard's church.
1 In the eighteenth century, it was occasionally spoken of as "The Jews'
Lane," from the Jewish synagogue which stood upon its north side.
2 Set forth in Wagenaar's Hist. Verhael., Amst., 1621-32.
3 The others were wind-mills, one a saw-mill situated on Nutten or Governor's
Island ; the other, a grist-mill, seems to have stood upon the bluff above the North
River shore, a short distance northwest of the fort. Upon its accidental destruc-
tion by fire, a new one was built a little southwest of the fort. It is the earlier
grist-mill which is shown in the Hartgers View of New Amsterdam, of about 1632.
156 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
1628, Dominie Jonas Michaelis assumed the charge of the first
religious congregation within the limits of the present State of
New York. He was a man of middle age, who was born in
North Holland in 1577, and who had entered as a divinity
student at Leyden, in the year 1600, where he is said to have
been contemporaneous with the famous Dutch scholar, Ger.
Johannes Vossius, and with Jacob Cats, who afterwards
attained such great fame as a poet, in the Netherlands. Of
his further history we know but little, save that it is stated
that he was settled as pastor at Nieuwbokswoude, a village in
North Holland, in 1612, and two years later, in the church at
Hem (Henisteede ?). In 1624, upon the taking of San Salvador,
in Brazil, from the Portuguese, by the Dutch Admiral, Heyn,
Dominie Michaelis received the appointment of minister at
that place. The town being retaken in the next year by the
Portuguese, however, Michaelis was transferred to the Dutch
possessions on the coast of Guinea, then recently captured
from the Portuguese ; he did not remain here long, however,
for in 1627 he returned to the Netherlands, and in J anuary of the
following year he sailed for New Amsterdam. He was evi-
dently a man of considerable mental attainments, for at New
Amsterdam he preached at times in the French language to
the Walloon settlers. His sole literary remains of which we
have knowledge are to be found in a letter to the fatherland,
bearing date August 11, 1628, in which he appears to be
an earnest and patient minister of the Christian religion,
struggling against more than common trials in the new
country in which he had cast his lot.1
Both Dominie Michaelis and his congregation must have
often found themselves contrasting painfully the new condi-
tions surrounding them with the old. Among the men and
women who met here to worship, there were those who remem-
bered the Oude Kerk — the old church — of Amsterdam,
with its thirty environing chapels, dark with the very rich-
ness of their stained glass adornment, and where a score of
many-branched lustres shed a soft light on the benches of the
1 See the letter, with notes of Doctor O'Callaghan, in 2 N. Y. Col. Doc. 763.
DOMINIE MICHAELIS AND HIS CHURCH 157
grave magistrates of the city, and on the marble tombs of great
men who had died for their country on land and on sea, in the
yet unfinished war for Dutch independence ; others had mem-
ories of the great church of St. Lawrence at Rotterdam, look-
ing down majestically upon the placid canals which environed
it, and upon the statue of that giant of intellect, Erasmus ;
some had listened to the chiming of the four hundred bells of
the "New Church" of Delft, or had contemplated with reverence
the tomb of William the Silent in that famous edifice; some
had worshipped in the sublime cathedral of Antwerp, the lofty
and solemn Gothic arches of which were a sermon in them-
selves. Now, from the windows of their unadorned loft over
the bark mill on the edge of Blommaert's Vly, they looked
northward over a rough pasture-field gently sloping up to a
low ridge of hills, where the trees which then covered the
Pine Street and Cedar Street of to-day were gradually disap-
pearing under the axes of the negro wood-choppers; looking
to the east, between them and the East River shore, and upon
the broad river itself, and in the Long Island forests beyond,
no signs of human life were discernible, unless perchance an
Indian canoe or two paddled along the shore; only to the
southwest, across the narrow swamp which intervened, a few
thatched cottages clustered around the slowly rising walls of
the fort.
To many of the congregation of Dominie Michaelis in this
rude place of worship, the lessons of religion must have
appealed with peculiar force amidst the hardships and uncer-
tainties with which they were surrounded, and in the loss of
most of the old associations of their lives. Death came, too,
and within these rough walls often sounded the solemn words
of the reader : "Ik ben de opstanding en het leven ; die in
mij gelooft, zal leven, al ware hij ook gestorven ; en een
iegelijk die leeft, en in mij gelooft, zal niet sterven in
eeuwigheid," — recalling to his hearers the profound mystery of
the Resurrection and the Life ; even the good Dominie himself
must have heard them with new emotions when, in the very year
of his arrival, he, with his two little motherless daughters, fol-
158 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
lowed the funeral procession of his deceased wife over the
little bridge, across the Marckveldt, and to the barren spot
just north of it, upon a hillock overlooking the North River,
where the dead of the new settlement slept their last sleep in
unmarked graves. The retirement of Dominie Michaelis, and
the advent of Dominie Bogardus, in 1633, was marked by the
erection of a separate church building near the river shore,
and upon the present Pearl Street, of which previous mention
has been made.1 The bark mill, no longer required for public
uses,2 seems to have been in part turned into quarters for some
of the negro slaves of the West India Company. In a deed of
1643, this, with a parcel of land adjacent, is spoken of as " the
negroes' plantation," being doubtless a vegetable plot culti-
vated by them ; in another instrument, of 1656, it is alluded to
as " the house the negroes live in." Somewhere about this
latter period, a new bark mill was established by private parties,
very near the southwest corner of the present Broad Street
and Exchange Place, and the old mill, which was under the
control of the Deaconry of the Church in 1660 (and which
may, indeed, have been so controlled from the period of its use
as a church), was sold in 1663 to Go vert Loockermans, and
remained in existence many years.3
The only other house which appears to have existed upon
the Slyck Steegh, in 1655, was that of Evert Duyckink. This
man, who was a glassmaker from Borcken, in Westphalia, a
small town a few miles beyond the boundary of the Nether-
lands, received a grant of somewhat more than half an acre
of ground upon the north side of the Slyck Steegh, in 1643.
Marrying, two or three years later, Hendrickje Simons, a young
woman from his own district in Westphalia, he appears to
have built upon this ground, and to have resided here a
1 See ante, page 58.
2 It seems to be the mill referred to in a report of 1638 to the West India
Company, as being then out of repair.
8 In 1667 Loockermans sold the old mill to Jacques Cousseau; the latter sold
the premises to Carsten Jansen in January, 1671, and in 1679 Jansen's executor
sold the same to Clement Sebrah.
EVERT DUYCKINK'S HOUSE
159
number of years.1 The location of his house is uncertain,
but there are some reasons for supposing that it stood nearly
one hundred feet east of the bark mill, and upon or very
near the site of the present buildings, Nos. 20 and 22 South
William Street, but some twenty-live feet or more back
from the north side of the lane. In 1674, Duyckink, who
had some time before removed to another part of the town,
sold his house on Slyck Steegh, with what then remained of
his original plot (being in size about three city lots), to Jacob
Melyn, the son of Director-General Stuyvesant's old antago-
nist, Cornells Melyn. Jacob Melyn held this property for many
years, but it does not seem to have been a profitable invest-
ment for him, for in or about 1697, he being then a resident
of Boston, we find him giving a letter of instruction to
Abraham Schellinger of Easthampton, Long Island (who was
probably his nephew, the son of his sister Cornelia, wife
of Jacob Schellinger, already referred to), to repair to New
York and endeavor to sell his house on Mill Street, " and if
no sayle can be obtained, nor person be to be gott to live in 't on
any acct., then to naile up doors and windows with roff
boards, and secure the glass." The agent was not, however,
forced to this last resort of a disgusted landlord, for in May,
1697, he sold the premises to Doctor Johannes Kerf byl, formerly
of Amsterdam, a prominent physician of his day in the city.
Doctor Kerfbyl was a resident of the city as early as 1686, when
we find him dwelling upon the west side of Broad Street. He
is said to have been a graduate of Leyden, and was at one
time a member of the Governor's Council at New York, but
his success excited jealousy among some of his neighbors, and
he was denounced as a "charlatan." It was probably the
Doctor's son, of the same name as his father, who was natu-
ralized by Act of Parliament, in 6 Anne (1707). As for the
1 His family included Cornelis Jansen, an orphan lad of thirteen years at the
period of our survey, whose parents had been killed by the Indians at their
farm at Sapokauican (the later Greenwich), in the war of 1643. Their three
children, aged respectively four, three, and one years of age, at that time, were
received into different families in the town.
160 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Doctor himself, he must have died soon after his purchase of
this property in 1697. The premises then passed into the
hands of Jewish purchasers, and became the site of the first
Jewish synagogue in New York, which was established here
between the years 1697 and 1700.1
1 The closed portion, or northerly turning (before referred to) of the Slyck
Steegh, appears to have been in part in the possession of one Richard Elliott, a
cooper, in the latter part of the seventeenth century. This man, who was a resi-
dent of New York as early as 1672, dwelt here for many years with his wife and
four sons. Of the latter, three died young and unmarried, while the fourth son,
Henry, went to sea about the year 1701, and was never again heard of. Both
Elliott and his wife died prior to the year 1714, and as no person appeared to
claim any interest in the property, it remained apparently ownerless till 1721,
when, under the legal procedure then in force, the property was adjudged to have
escheated to the British Crown for want of heirs. Thereupon the Council made
the following curious order, — a handsome tribute to the worthy and modest
pastor of the little French Huguenot Church on King (now Pine) Street: "For-
asmuch as his Majesty's Council of this province did conceive that the granting
thereof " (that is, of Letters Patent of the escheated land) "as an encouragement
to learning, could not but be acceptable to his Majesty, and that they knew not of
a more proper and deserving person of such favor than Mr. Lewis Rou, minister of
the French Church in tins city, who in Divinity, History, and Cronology [sic],
and many other parts of learning, is as great a master as any in his Majesty's
colonies in America ; " they therefore give their assent to the issuing of Letters
Patent to him. This is apparently the property now occupied by the rear addi-
tion, upon South William Street, of the Delmonico building.
CHAPTER XIV
THE HOUSES OF BARENT J AN SEN, JAN NAGEL, CLAES
CARSTENSEN, AND JO C HEM C ALDER. — PIETER AN-
DR1ESSEN AND HIS TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS.—
NICHOLAS DE MEYER. — WESSEL EVERTSEN, THE FISH-
ERMAN—RUT JACOBSEN
UPON the north side of Hoogh (Stone) Straet, and im-
mediately east of the ground where, soon after the
period of our survey, Jacob van Couwenhoven erected his
brewery, already mentioned, there stood, in the year 1655,
three small houses in close juxtaposition. The eight-story
yellow brick building of an electrical construction company,
which now covers the site of these humble dwellings, towers
above the surrounding warehouses, as the cottages them-
selves were over-towered in the seventeenth century by Van
Couwenhoven's " great stone brew-house."
The first, or westernmost of these buildings, was the house
of Barent Jansen. He was one of the earlier colonists, but
hardly anything in relation to him can be gleaned from the
records. His very patent or ground-brief for this land can-
not be found, and its existence is only learned by allusions to
it in other instruments. It was a parcel of about thirty-seven
English feet frontage upon Hoogh Straet, and it extended
back to the Slyck Steegh. Upon its western side it would
appear that Barent Jansen must have built a small house at
an early date. Intimately connected with Jansen in some
way — probably by marriage — was one Claes Carstensen, a
Norwegian of middle age, from the village of Sonde in the
southern part of Norway.
Barent Jansen must have died before the spring of 1647,
11
162 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
for in March of that year a grant which had been made to
him, of fifty morgens, or about one hundred acres of land on
the west side of the Hudson River, but for which he had
never received his ground-brief, was vested, by the Director
and Council in Claes Carstensen. In what way this latter
individual obtained an interest in the Hoogh Straet property
we do not know; but soon after 1647 he is found in posses-
sion of a small house upon the easterly half of the Jansen
grant, which house he sold a few years after that date to Jan
Nagel. As to the house upon the westerly side of the plot,
supposed to have been built by Barent Jansen, it appears in
1662 as then in the joint occupation and tenure of Claes
Carstensen and of Jan Barentsen Kunst, probably the young
son of Barent Jansen.
Claes Carstensen, together with Jan Forbus (usually
spoken of as Jan de Swede), Pieter Jansen Noorman, Dirck
Volckertsen and Jacob Haes, formed a little clique of
Scandinavians, closely associated in various enterprises, and
owners at an early date of a large portion of the lands em-
braced in the present Williamsburgh and Green Point in
Brooklyn.1
The dwelling-house held by Claes Carstensen upon the
eastern part of Barent Jansen's ground, as above mentioned,
was sold by him in 1653 to Jan Nagel, who resided here
at the time of our survey. This man, who was from
Limburg in the Netherlands, had come to New Amsterdam,
like many others among the colonists, as a soldier in the
employ of the West India Company, and is spoken of in
164T as "late cadet" in that service; in later years he was
commonly known as "Sergeant Nagel. " Jan Nagel must
have died about the year 1657, but his son, of the same
name,2 became prominent some twenty years later, as one of
1 Carstensen was, it seems, in high repute among the colonists on account of
his acquaintance with the Indian language. Riker, in his " History of Harlem,"
states that he acted as interpreter, upon the occasion of the treaty with the
Indians at the general gathering upon Schreyers Hoek, south of the fort, on
August 30, 1645.
2 This son, who was born in 1653, seems to have been really named Jeuriaen
THE NAGEL FARMHOUSE
163
the earlier settlers of the town of Haerlem, who with his
associate Jan Dykman, ancestor of the family of that name,
restored to cultivation the farms on the extreme northern
end of Manhattan Island, which had been devastated by the
Indians in 1655, and had lain waste and abandoned for more
than a score of years. The small antiquated yellow farm-
house, which, with its decaying orchard and neglected fields,
— almost the last remnants of the farming days of Manhattan
Island, — was still to be seen as late as the beginning of the
year 1901 upon the banks of the Harlem River just below
King's Bridge, and which often excited the curious attention of
the traveller approaching New York City on the trains of the
New York Central Railway, must have stood very near the
site — if not exactly upon it — of the Nagel farmhouse of
the seventeenth century;1 and the uncared-for burial-ground
of several generations of that family lies a few hundred feet
west of the site of the house. The spot, with its memories
of Indian warfare, of the murdered Tobias Teunissen, and of
the marching, counter-marching, and fighting of Americans,
British, and Hessians in the War of the Revolution, ought to
have been preserved and maintained by the City of New
York, as one of the very few surviving mementos of early
days.
But to return to our survey of Hoogh Straet; the third, or
easternmost of the three small houses previously spoken of
as occupying, in the year 1655, the site of the present large
building known as Nos. 31 to 35 Stone Street, was the
cottage of one Jochem Calder, who had obtained a ground-
brief for the land in 1645, and who seems to have built within
a short time thereafter upon the westerly side of his plot of
about thirty-seven English feet in frontage. Very little
Jansen Nagel, but, like many others of the colonists, he was rarely known by his
christened name. He married, while still very young, Rebecca, the daughter of
Resolved Waldron.
1 It was destroyed by fire soon after the date above mentioned. The small
Dntch bricks which are worked into the substantial foundations of this house
afford additional support to the statements in the text.
164 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
information, however, can be gathered from the records
respecting this man; he had died prior to 1659, in which
year his widow Magdalena married Gysbert Teunissen.
Passing over two garden spots, or vacant places, belonging
to this last-mentioned plot and to the next one, we come to
the house of Pieter Andriessen, upon the site of which at
the present day stands the building No. 41 Stone Street.
Andriessen was a native of the province of Brabant, in the
Netherlands, and came over to New Amsterdam in 1639 in
the ship "De Brant van Trogen " ("The Conflagration of
Troy"), with Captain Jochem Pietersen Kuyter and Jonas
Bronck. Upon their arrival at New Amsterdam, Andriessen
and one Laurens Duytts, his fellow-passenger upon the vessel,
were hired by Jonas Bronck to undertake the clearing of a
tract of five hundred acres which Bronck purchased from the
Indians upon his arrival, and which lay upon the mainland
beyond the Harlem River; it covered what is now known as
Morrisania, and Pieter Andriessen and his co-laborer were
therefore the pioneers of the present Borough of the Bronx.1
How long Andriessen was employed upon Bronck's land we
are not informed. Jonas Bronck died about the year 1643,
and his property passed into other hands. In 1645, Andries-
sen obtained the grant of his lot of about thirty-seven feet
front on Hoogh Straet, and no doubt soon built there, as the
officers of the West India Company were, as a rule, disposed
to insist upon a speedy improvement of plots granted by them
in the town. In the fall of the same year, however, he also
acquired a farm of about one hundred and fifty acres upon
the East River shore of Long Island, being a tract upon
which one Jan Jacobsen Carpenel, familiarly known as Jan
of Haerlem, had previously begun a clearing. This farm,
which covered the middle portion of the locality along the
1 The agreement between Bronck, Andriessen, and Duytts in 1639, is still
extant. Bronck was to advance to the two men 121 florins to pay their board
upon the ship. The two were to have liberty to plant tobacco and maize upon
Bronck's land upon condition that they should break up a certain quantity of
new land every two years, surrendering the other to the owner, for the planting
of grain.
PIETER ANDRIESSEN'S FARM 165
East River shore, generally known some years ago as Ravens-
wood, extended about half a mile back from the river to a
small stream called in later times Sunswick Creek, which is
yet to be seen flowing through a narrow salt meadow. The
site of the farmhouse here was nearly opposite the foot of
the present Fifty-fifth Street on Manhattan Island. Pieter
Andriessen, however, had an additional occupation to that
of a farmer ; he was a chimney-sweep, — an employment of
considerable importance in those days of wood fires and of
thatched roofs, — and from that fact he was commonly
known in the town as Pieter de Schoorsteenveger. As this
occupation of Pieter must have necessitated his frequent
attendance in the town, and as he does not appear to have
married till a comparatively late day, he seems to have been
in the habit of shifting his quarters backward and forward
between his house on Hoogh Straet and his plantation on
Long Island, as occasion might require. Neither of these
establishments was on a very magnificent scale, it is probable,
and the farm on Long Island seems to have been tenanted by
several negro slaves of Andriessen.
In 1648, Pieter Andriessen appears in the list of tavern-
keepers in the settlement. As, however, his house upon
Hoogh Straet was directly opposite the " Great Tavern " of
the West India Company (afterwards the Town House), it is
hardly probable that he would have been permitted to main-
tain a tavern there, and he is much more likely to have kept
liquor upon tap at his Long Island farm, to accommodate his
few neighbors and their workmen, as well as the wood-
cutters, quarrymen, and boatmen whose employment called
them up and down along the East River.
In September, 1655, after the outbreak of the Indian
troubles of that year, there was a general flight to New
Amsterdam of the panic-stricken settlers who had survived
the first onslaught of the Indians. Hastily throwing their
personal effects into the boats with which most of them were
provided as means of conveyance, and turning loose into the
woods the cattle, which in general they could not remove,
166 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
they abandoned their exposed plantations, and with their
families took refuge under the guns of Fort Amsterdam.
Unlike the Indian attacks of 1643-44, that of 1655 was
directed, in many instances, not so much to murder and to
general devastation, as to securing captives for the sake of a
ransom. In this way the abandoned plantations were often
spared, in the hope apparently of entrapping the colonists.
Four weeks had gone by since the first attack by the
Indians, when Pieter Andriessen determined to take a party
out to his plantation on Long Island, in order to try to re-
cover some of his cattle. The party, consisting of Andriessen
and five others, sailed up the East River one October morning,
and finding nothing to alarm them, landed at Andriessen's
farm, and set about scouring the neighboring woods and
thickets for the animals. The Dutch, however, had been
discovered by a party of Indians, who, to the number of
about thirty, set upon them and took them all prisoners.
Sending two of their captives back to New Amsterdam, with
a statement of what the captors required in the way of cloth,
lead, gunpowder, kettles, guns, knives, shoes, axes, etc., —
as a ransom, — the savages retained Andriessen and three of
his companions as their prisoners, all but one of these being
wounded. As, however, Andriessen's party had left the
town without the knowledge and consent of the military
authorities, and indeed against an express prohibition, the
Director and Council, after much discussion of the case,
declined to act for various reasons, one of which was " be-
cause when the other savages, who keep yet seventy- three
prisoners of our nation, understood that such an extravagant
ransom 1 has been paid for four, they would demand a more
enormous sum." Andriessen and his comrades, therefore,
remained in the hands of the savages for a while longer ; but
within a couple of weeks, — apparently stimulated by the
threat of the Indians, to carry the remaining captives into the
interior of the country — the authorities at New Amsterdam
1 The value of the goods required may have amounted to $150 or $200 of
the present currency.
DE RUYTER'S CHICKEN EXPEDITION 167
came to an agreement with the natives respecting the amount
of ransom, and most or all of the prisoners were restored.
Matters, however, remained in a very unsettled condition,
in spite of the apparent settlement with the Indians; and
frequent reports of depredations in the vicinity of New
Amsterdam (of which the natives generally disclaimed any
knowledge), kept the community in a constant state of uncer-
tainty and dread. While things were in this state, there
sat, on the night of the 4th of November of this year, 1655,
around a blazing fire on the wide kitchen hearth of Pieter
Andriessen's rough farmhouse near the East River shore, his
negro slave Stephen, and a crony of the latter, Captain
Francis Fyn's negro man, who had rowed across from his
master's farmhouse on Varcken (now Blackwell's) Island,
for a social evening. With this pair of worthies was Claes de
Ruyter, a Dutchman of jovial disposition from New Amster-
dam, who is understood to have been a former trooper in the
West India Company's service. The negro Stephen had
evidently been sent to take charge of his master's property,
either because he ran comparatively little risk of being car-
ried off by the Indians, or because Pieter Andriessen himself
was not yet recovered from the effects of his late encounter
with the savages. The presence of Claes de Ruyter, how-
ever, at this time and place, is not susceptible of so easy an
explanation.
Rations seem to have been rather scanty with the party at
Pieter Andriessen's house; the keen autumn air had given
them sharp appetites; and as the long evening wore away,
some one — we will suppose it was Stephen — remembered
that there were some chickens left upon the farm of the
nearest neighbor, Joris Stevensen de Caper. The trio
promptly agreed that these fowls ought not to be left for
the Indians, or for wolves, wild-cats, and foxes, and an expe-
dition was determined upon to recover some, at least, of
them. A walk of about a mile, over rough pasture-fields,
and through woods and thickets, brought the party in sight
of the low farmhouse of Joris Stevensen. This house, of
168 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
which all vestiges have long ago disappeared, was situated
on the edge of the salt marshes nearly half a mile east of the
present Queens County Court House in Long Island City, —
just where De Caper, or "the sailor," could bring his market-
boat almost to the door of his house by sailing up a small
creek called Canapaukah, a branch of the Mespat Kill, or
present Newtown Creek. Joris Stevensen's family had
abandoned their exposed dwelling, as had most of the
farmers' families in the country, but the men came to the
farm occasionally to attend to necessary work. To guard
against any interference by possible inmates of the house,
the marauding party commenced operations by a vigorous
battering against the door of the house, accompanied by a
whole storm of blood-curdling yells and war-whoops, in
which we may suppose that Claes de Ruyter, who was
familiar with the Indians, and who often acted as go-between
for them and for the whites, bore a prominent part. The
expedition was, in short, entirely successful, and Claes and
his companions returned to Pieter Andriessen's farmhouse,
where they calmly proceeded to pluck and to dress their
plunder.
In the mean time the Joris Stevensen farm had not been
entirely deserted. That individual himself, together with
his father-in-law, Harmen Hendricksen, and one Teunis
Jansen van Commel, had been engaged during the day in
threshing out some grain, and at night had disposed them-
selves to sleep in the barn. Scared almost out of their wits
by the supposed Indian attack, and fearing to be discovered
or burned in the barn, they had escaped into the night and
sought places of concealment for themselves in various
directions. One of the fugitives made his way across the
fields to the house of his neighbor Andriessen; here he dis-
covered a light, and approaching carefully to reconnoitre, he
heard, to his great joy, some conversation in Dutch; there-
upon he boldly entered the house, where his appearance was
about as agreeable to Claes de Ruyter and the negroes as was
that of Banquo's ghost to Macbeth in the banqueting hall
BURNING OF JACOB HAES'S HOUSE 169
at the palace of Fores. The party had, in fact, just spitted
Joris Stevensen's fowls, and were caught red-handed. Claes
was profuse in his apologies, expatiated on the desperation
of starving men, promised to pay for the fowls when he
returned to town, and incidentally suggested that it was
not necessary to say anything about a trilling matter of this
kind.
News of this affair found its way to New Amsterdam,
however, and produced a considerable effect upon the author-
ities there, for it showed them that other agencies besides the
Indians might be at work keeping up the state of disorder in
the country. While this occurrence was yet fresh, on the
morning of the 8th of November, 1655, the people of New
Amsterdam were again excited by a spectacle which had been
too common during the preceding few weeks, — a column of
smoke rising above the woods from some burning building
along the East River shore. The precise location of the fire
was not determinable from the town, but soon news arrived
from up the river that it was the farmhouse of Jacob Haes,
situated beyond the Noormans Kill, on the shore of what is
now called Green Point. On this same morning, Director-
General Stuyvesant, with Nicasius de Sille, one of the mem-
bers of his Council, appeared before the court of burgomasters
in the Town Hall with a request, which was duly entered
upon the minutes of that body, "that the fiscal rigidly
examine Teunis Jansen as to what he saw at the house
of Pieter Schoorsteenveger ; whereas, now Jacob Haey's
house is burning, and it might possibly happen in the same
manner."
An examination into the late pranks of Claes de Ruyter
followed, accordingly, but we do not find that it threw any
light upon the later affair, and the matter seems to have been
dropped without any further proceedings. Stuyvesant and
his Council were determined, however, to prevent troubles
of this sort in future; and upon the 18th of January, 1656,
followed the famous "Order against Isolated Plantations,"
commanding all the subjects of the Colony to settle close to
170 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
one another in villages, neighborhoods, and hamlets, by the
following spring, imposing a penalty upon such persons as
remain upon exposed plantations, and giving them notice
that they must not expect any aid from the authorities in
case of trouble with the natives. Four years later, in fact,
owing to frequent disregard of the ordinance, notice was
given by the Council to farmers still living upon isolated
farms, to pull down their houses, and it is believed that a
few houses were actually destroyed under the orders of the
authorities, before the surrender to the English, in 1664,
rendered the ordinance of the Council obsolete.
After these proceedings of the Council, there is room to
suppose that Pieter Andriessen became, for a time at least,
a permanent resident of his house on Hoogh Straet. He
married, in 1661, Geertruyd Samsens, a widow, and we find
that in 1664 he had a daughter, Jannetje, baptized in the
Dutch Church ; but in 1668 it appears that both he and his
wife had died, and two years later the Hoogh Straet house
was sold, by the representatives of her estate, to Barent
Coersen.
Next adjoining the house of Pieter Andriessen upon the
east, in a garden of nearly seventy-five feet front upon
Hoogh Straet, stood at the time of our survey the dwelling-
house of Jacob van Couwenhoven, previously alluded to,1
which was sold in the following year to Nicholas de Meyer.
This building was of stone, and of much greater pretensions
than most of its neighbors, for at its sale to De Meyer, which
was at public auction, it was already mortgaged for about
3500 guilders, or $1400 of the present currency; it stood
upon the site of the present buildings, No. 47, and a part of
No. 45 Stone Street. This house was occupied as a residence
for more than thirty years by Nicholas de Meyer. He was
from Hamburg, then claimed to be under the jurisdiction of
the Duchy of Holstein, from which cause he was occasionally
called by the Dutch of New Amsterdam, Nicolaas van Hol-
1 See ante, p. 146.
Stone Street.
Looking towards Hanover Square. The ancient Hoogh Straet.
NICHOLAS DE MEYER
171
steyn. The ordinary appellation of De Meyer (that is, the
"steward" or "farmer") seems, however, to have been
preferred by Nicholas and his descendants, and became the
family name. Nicholas had married, in 1655, Luda, or
Lydia, daughter of the ex-fiscal, or prosecutor, Hendrick
van Dyke; he became, in later years, a man of considerable
prominence in the city, having been one of the magistrates
in 1664, at the time of the surrender to the English. After-
wards, in 1676, he was mayor of the city. He was a man
of active business interests and took a considerable part in
developing the settlement of the village of Haerlem, where he
had purchased various parcels of land amounting to between
sixty and seventy acres in extent; he also owned a wind-mill
near the intersection of the present Chatham and Duane
streets, and a brewery in the Smits VJy, or modern Pearl
Street, near Piatt Street. After the death of Nicholas de
Meyer, in 1690, the property upon Stone Street was divided,
and the original homestead passed to his daughter Anna
Catrina, wife of Jan Willemsen Noering. The eldest son
of Nicholas, Wilhelmus or William de Meyer, became a
prominent citizen of Esopus and Kingston in the present
county of Ulster.
As we advance along the road, or "High Street," farther
eastwards from the fort, the plots granted to settlers become
larger, for they were given at a time when there was no
immediate likelihood of a demand for the land for the con-
struction of dwellings. In this way, Wessell Evertsen, the
next neighbor to Van Couwenhoven and to Nicholas de
Meyer, obtained in 1646 the grant of a parcel of land with a
frontage of nearly two hundred and twenty-five feet along the
road, and extending back to the Slyck Steegh. Evertsen
came from the old town of Naerden, upon the south coast
of the Zuyder Zee, some thirteen or fourteen miles east of
Amsterdam, — an interesting place, with many a tradition
of Spanish atrocities perpetrated here in the war for inde-
pendence; a picturesque spot, too, where the flat western
172 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
coast of the Zuyder Zee, and the interminable dyked
meadows in the direction of Amsterdam, give place to the
heights of Gooiland; and where, to the observer gazing
southeastward, —
" A brighter, livelier scene succeeds ;
In groups the scattering wood recedes,
Hedge-rows, and huts, and sunny meads,
And corn-fields glance between," —
till he might well imagine himself among the fields of
Kent or of Essex, rather than in a corner of the province
of Holland.
Having come to New Amsterdam, Evertsen married, in
1643, Geertje Bouwhens, a young woman from his old home,
and had probably built upon his plot on Hoogh Straet, as
early as 1645, a year or so before he obtained his ground-
brief. He was a seafaring man, and in 1648 is spoken of
as "late master of the yacht Saint Martin;" but his main
occupation, which he followed for many years at New
Amsterdam, was that of a fisherman, and from his house,
which, adjoining a capacious garden, stood about upon the
site of the present building, No. 55 Stone Street, a path or
lane, which remained open for many years, led down directly
to the mooring-place of his boats upon the East River shore.
A couple of hundred feet to the west of this last-mentioned
spot was the tall building of the city tavern, for the bright
lights of which Wessell Evertsen had doubtless often strained
his eyes, sailing up the bay, belated on his fishing trips, —
much as he might have watched, at home in the fatherland,
for the lights of the historic Castle of Muyden on the Zuyder
Zee, as he ran up, on dark nights, from Amsterdam to
Naerden, through the broad channel of the Pampus.
Here, then, upon Hoogh Straet, Wessell Evertsen lived
for many years, and saw a large family grow up around him.
The extreme eastern end of his plot of ground he had sold
as early as 1649 to one Rut Jacobsen, but he retained the
balance of it till about 1657, when the increasing demand for
ELLIOTT'S ALLEY
173
building lots in the town induced him to sell one small parcel
after another, till in the course of five or six years he had
disposed of all the ground except that in the immediate
vicinity of his dwelling-house. Evertsen appears to have
died shortly before 1670, but the place remained in the pos-
session of his descendants as late as the year 172G.
The parcel of land just before alluded to as forming the
eastern end of Wessell Evertsen's grant, and as having been
sold by him in 1649 to Rutger (commonly known as Rut)
Jacobsen, must have been built upon by the latter at about
the period named, and it was doubtless at the same time
that the narrow lane bounding it upon the west, and which
formed the southerly turn to the Slyck Steegh, was laid out.
This passageway, under the name of Mill Lane, is still to be
seen opening into Stone Street, as was previously noticed;1
and the site of Jacobsen's plot is at present occupied by a
low but spacious brick building of two stories, conspicuous
for its large windows, and occupied by the Board of Marine
Underwriters. The entrance to this structure is upon South
William Street, where was originally the rear of Jacobsen's
premises. As for the passageway now called Mill Lane, and
sometimes Mill Street, it was known for a time, about the end
of the seventeenth century, as Ellet's or Elliott's Alley, from
Richard Elliott, previously mentioned (ante, page 160, note),
who lived just at its head upon the Slyck Steegh. Rutger
Jacobsen, at the time of his purchase of this property upon
Hoogh Straet, was a resident of Rensselaerswyck 2 (now
Albany), and although he undoubtedly resided at times in
New Amsterdam, he does not appear to have given up his citi-
zenship at the former place, for in 1656 he was one of the mag-
istrates of Rensselaerswyck, and as such, in that year, he laid
the corner-stone of the new Dutch Church, the site of which
was at the intersection of the present State Street and Broad-
1 See ante, page 153.
2 Jacobsen came from Schoonrewoerd in the Netherlands, a village some
twelve English miles south of Utrecht. His daughter Margrietje married, in
1667, Jan Jansen Bleecker, from Meppel in the province of Overyssel, ancestor of
the Bleecker family, well known in the annals of New York.
174 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
way, in the city of Albany. The house at New Amsterdam
was retained by Jacobsen till the fall of 1660, when it was sold
at public auction to one Johannes Withart. It would seem to
have been used by Rut Jacobsen either as a place of tempo-
rary residence for himself and family when in New Amster-
dam, or as a storehouse connected with the North River
trade, he having been, as early as 1649, the owner of a
sloop plying upon the Hudson between Rensselaerswyck and
New Amsterdam. After Withart these premises came to be
noted as the residence of Nicholas Bayard, long conspicuous
in the affairs of the city, mayor in 1685, the deadly personal
enemy of Jacob Leisler, and the man above all others respon-
sible for the judicial murder of Leisler and his son-in-law
Milborne in 1691; bold and turbulent, he pitted himself
against the Earl of Bellomont, Governor of the Colony, was
himself condemned to death for treason, and very narrowly
escaped Leisler's fate. His large farm and country seat west
of the Bowery became one of the prominent features of New
York in the eighteenth century. He purchased the house
upon Stone Street from Johannes Withart in 1685, the year
of his mayoralty, but had resided in it for a number of
years before that period.
CHAPTER XV
THE "GREAT TAVERN," AFTERWARDS THE TOWN HALL. —
ITS HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS. — DOM-
INIE BOGARDUS'S PARTY. — THE COURTS.— THE SHIRT
CASE.— GOVERNOR LOVELACE'S TAVERN
The Taverner tooke me by the sieve,
" Sr" sayth he, " will you or wyne assay ? "
I answerd, " that cau not mutch me greve
A peny cau do no more than it may; "
I dranke a pynt, and for it dyd pay,
Yet sore a hungred fro thence I yede, —
A ud wantyuge my mony I cold not spede.
iHE traveller, in the middle of the seventeenth century,
\_ approaching Amsterdam up the broad estuary of the
Y, from the Zuyder Zee, and rounding a point of flat meadow-
land intersected by canals, where some years later the vast
dock-yards, timber wharves, and storehouses of the Admi-
ralty and of the East India Company arose, saw at his left
hand, stretching for two miles along the shore, the array of
houses of that famed city, broken here and there by canals, the
mouths of which were occasionally marked by ancient stone
towers of quaint form, the survivors of the bulwarks of former
days. At a distance of a few hundred feet from the shore
extended an apparently interminable double line of " booms,"
— stout piles driven into the earth and fastened together at
the tops by string pieces, and to these were moored an almost
countless host of vessels of all descriptions, —
the smaller craft only were permitted to pass within the line
of booms. Sailing by the mouth of the broad Amstel River,
Lydgate : " London Lyckpeny.'
" Meer vloten als besit de iveerclt, op het Y ;
176 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
crowded with boats and barges, as it flowed placidly through
the heart of the city, and passing the Haaring pakkers Tooren,
— the Herring-packers' Tower, — where it stood guard over
the entrance to the canal, called the " Cingel," the voyager saw
before him a long pier running out from the shore to a point
beyond the line of booms ; at its extremity was a large, high-
peaked wooden building, constructed upon piles, moored
around which was a swarm of yachts and rowboats of vari-
ous descriptions. This building was the Stadts Herbergh, or
City Tavern of Amsterdam; it had been built in the early
part of the seventeenth century, to furnish lodging and enter-
tainment to seafaring men, and to travellers who might arrive
in the city by night-coming vessels, or after the closing of the
land gates. The commodious quarters afforded by this tavern,
and its agreeable outlook over the land and water, caused it to
be held in high repute.
About the year 1640, when the trade of New Amsterdam
was already considerably extended, it was thought desirable,
by the officers of the West India Company, to afford better
accommodations for strangers in the town than were furnished
by the small and rude taverns which already existed there.
It was decided to establish, somewhat after the pattern of
Amsterdam, a Stadts Herbergh, or City Tavern, under the
auspices of the West India Company. This building was a
substantial edifice of stone, and was completed during the
year 1641. It was designedly placed in a very conspicuous
position near the shore of the East River, which one of its sides
faced, and at the time of its erection it formed a most promi-
nent landmark, standing entirely apart from the houses of the
town. Back of it lay the road, or Hoogh Straet, from which
a lane or passageway on the east side of the building gave
access to the open space between it and the shore. This lane,
after the City Tavern had become, in 1654, the Stadt Huys, or
Town Hall, was frequently spoken of, in English times, as
the " State House Lane," or " Hall Lane ; " it exists at the
present day as the narrow passageway, known as Coenties
Alley, a curious little dark street between high and almost
THE STADTS HERBERGH
177
blank walls ; it is overhung by rusty fire-escapes, and furnished
with miniature sidewalks, of about two feet wide.
The original ground-plot attached to the City Tavern,
appears to have been a strip about fifty feet in width, extend-
ing from Hoogh Straet to the East River shore, but in the
year 1651, upon the confiscation of the adjoining land of
Cornells Melyn,1 enough of that land appears to have been
added to the tavern plot to make the whole parcel about one
hundred and five feet in front upon the shore, and a few feet
less than that distance upon Hoogh Straet. The premises, so
enlarged, seem to have been then surrounded by a fence ; pre-
viously, they had been open and unenclosed. The additional
ground was doubtless used for a time for garden purposes.2
Collating carefully the various deeds for portions of these
premises, made from time to time in the eighteenth century,
after the Town House had ceased to be used for public pur-
poses.— some of which deeds refer expressly to lines of the
old building, while other dimensions of the latter result from
well-known principles of architecture, — the conclusion is
reached that the ground-plan of the City Tavern must have
been about forty-two feet front3 by about thirty-two feet in
depth; in height it contained two stories, with a basement
underneath and spacious lofts above.4 In the rear of the
building was an extension or addition, of which only the
eastern wall is definitely fixed ; this appears to have been a
long, narrow structure used for kitchen purposes, and prob-
ably containing other offices of a similar nature. The present
northerly line of Pearl Street would seem to have encroached
somewhat upon the site of the City Tavern, as will be seen
from the accompanying plan.
1 See ante, page 120.
2 Minutes of the Burgomasters, 15 November, 1658. On Johannes Nevius,
the secretary's petition, wherein he requests that lie may plant the garden behind
the Town Hall, — Ordered, that the petitioner may plant the garden, in conjunc-
tion with the court messenger.
3 That is to say, its later front upon what is now Pearl Street ; its original
front was towards the west.
* Under its steeply pitched roof.
12
178 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
The Stadts Herbergh appears to have been opened for the
entertainment of the public about the beginning of the year
1642, Philip Gerritsen from Haerlem being the first landlord,1
and the premises being leased to him and afterwards to
Adriaen Gerritsen (who had married Philip's widow), down
to the beginning of the year 1652, when we find Abraham
Delanoy conducting the tavern. The terms of the lease
were sufficiently liberal. Philip was to pay the company
three hundred guilders per year, or about $120 of the present
currency; he was to sell the company's wines and brandy
only, for which he was to be allowed a profit of six stivers
(about twelve cents) per quart, the company agreeing not to
allow any wines to be sold at retail out of its cellar, " which
might be drunk in clubs, and would tend to the lessee's
injury." The Director-General, at the same time, promised
to have a well dug near the house, and to cause a brew-house
to be put up in the rear of the tavern or else to give the use
of the company's brew-house, and moreover to permit a space
to be fenced off in the rear of the house.
The City Tavern was hardly more than opened before it
became historic. Many of the fugitives from the outlying
settlements, in the Indian War of 1643, were quartered here.
On the 18th of September of that year, there arrived in the
town the distressed colonists of Achter Col (near the present
Elizabethport), which had been destroyed on the preceding
night by the Indians. These people, who had collected in a
building there, managed with great difficulty to make their
escape in a canoe after the house in which they were gathered
had been set on fire ; they kept off the Indians by means of
their firearms, but lost everything else. They were lodged in
a body at the City Tavern at the expense of the West India
Company.
Here, too, in the beginning of 1651, was quartered the crew
of the ship " Nieuw Nederlandsche Fortuyn, " — the vessel of
the Baron van der Capellen, — seized and confiscated by order
1 Philip Gerritsen's lease bears date February 17, 1643, but runs from the
1st of January, 1642, for six years.
Plan of the Stadt Huys or Town
Hall of New Amsterdam
Compiled by J. H. INNES
Scale, jo feet = ]/2 inch
References:
a. Main building of the Stadt Huys.
b. Extension, supposed to have been a kitchen, etc.
c c. Small lots granted by the Burgomasters, 1664 — 66.
d. Lane or Alley to the Stadt Huys enclosure.
e. Site of tavern built by Gov. Lovelace, 16JO.
f f. Present line of Pearl Street.
THE CITY TAVERN AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS 179
of Director-General Stuyvesant ; nominally, on account of an
alleged infraction of the revenue laws, but really to gratify
his hatred against Cornells Melyn, whom he believed to be
a partner in the vessel, — for which proceeding the West
India Company had to make satisfaction afterwards in the
Netherlands.1
The tavern, indeed, from an early day was in frequent use
as a place of detention for suspected persons and for various
political or other prisoners. For this purpose, some portion
of the building — probably a part of its basement — must
have been specially prepared. Afterwards, when the edifice
came to be the Town House, a part of it was used as one of
the regular prisons of the town, and the provost, or jailer,
was obliged to divide his attentions between the prisoners
confined here and those within the fort, who were also in his
charge.
In this way various persons who had become obnoxious to
the Director and his Council were kept in detention from
time to time at the City Tavern, and later at the Town
House. Here was kept in durance, in 1647, the Scotchman
Andrew Forrester, of Dundee, the agent of the Earl of Stirling,
for asserting his principal's rights to Long Island, under his
purchase, in 1629, from the Plymouth Company, — till he
was packed off in the fall of that year to the Netherlands to
vindicate his conduct before the States-General. Here, in
1655, the Englishman, George Baxter, was confined: he had
been for many years in the employ of the Company in a
military capacity, but had fallen out with the Director- Gen-
eral and Council, and had attempted to raise a sedition against
the Dutch authorities at Gravesend. To the Town Hall, in
the spring of 1656, were marched the luckless English in-
truders, twenty-three in number, who had attempted, under
a claim hostile to the Dutch, to make a settlement at the
present Westchester. Sailing up the East River in his ship,
the " Weigh-Scales," Stuyvesant's lieutenant, " the valiant
Captain Frederick de Koninck,', and his forces proceeded in
1 See ante, page 119.
180 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
boats up the Westchester Creek, and captured the entire new
colony, which, with the exception of a few who were left to
guard their wives, children, and property, he conveyed to New
Amsterdam, where they were lodged in what they call " a
dungeon at the Court House " till they were ready to comply
with the demands of the Dutch authorities.
Such matters as these, however, did not interfere with the
attractions of the City Tavern as a social resort, and it soon
came to be patronized by many of the better class of citizens,
and by the officials of the West India Company, who fre-
quently made up parties for a supper and a social evening
there. These were not always free from unpleasant occur-
rences, as we learn. On the night of the 15th of March, 1644,
there were gathered in Philip Gerritsen's parlor in the City
Tavern, Doctor Hans Kiersted, Dominie Bogardus, Nicholaus
Coorn, Jan Jacobsen, Gysbert Opdyck,1 and other persons,
with their wives, spending — so we are told — a very agree-
able evening together. How this gathering was put to flight
by the swashbuckler, Captain John Underbill, is told by sev-
eral of the parties present : " About an hour after supper there
came in John Onderhil, with his lieutenant Baxter, and
drummer, to whom the above-named Philip Gerritsen said,
' Friends, I have invited these persons here, with their wives ;
I therefore request that you will betake yourselves to another
room, where you can be furnished with wine for money.'
They finally did so, after many words. Having been gone
a short time, said Onderhil and his company, who had then
been joined by Thomas Willet, invited some of our company
to take a drink with them, which was done. George Baxter,
by Onderhil's orders, came and requested that Opdyke would
come and join them, — which he refused. Thereupon he, On-
derhil and his companions broke into pieces, with drawn swords,
the cans which hung on the shelf in the tavern ; endeavoring
by force, having drawn swords in their hands, to come into
the room where the invited guests were. This was for a long
1 Commissary at the South or Delaware River settlements, and original
grantee of Coney Island.
DOMINIE BOGARDUS'S PARTY 181
time resisted by the landlady, with a leaden bolt, and by the
landlord, by keeping the door shut ; but finally John Onder-
hil and his associates, in spite of all opposition, came into
the room, where he uttered many words. Captain Onderhil,
holding his sword in his hand and the scabbard in his left
hand, — the blade about a foot out of the scabbard, — said to
the minister, as reported, whilst he grasped his sword : 4 Clear
out of here, for I shall strike at random ! ' In like manner,
some English soldiers came immediately (as we presume, to
his assistance), the above named Onderhil being then guilty,
with his companions, of gross insolence." The uproar now
assumed larger proportions, and the fiscal, or public prose-
cutor, and a guard from the fort were sent for, without their
presence producing much effect on the drunken Englishmen.
The latter still refused to withdraw from the scene of festiv-
ity; and it was presumably in reply to an admonition of
Dominie Bogardus, coupled with a suggestion of sending for
the Director-General himself, that Underhill said to the
Minister, as deposed to by the witnesses : " If the Director
come here, 't is well. I had rather speak to a wise man than
a fool." This irreverent reply seems to have taken all the
spirit from the guests. "And in order to prevent further
and more serious mischief, — yea, even bloodshed," say the
witnesses, lugubriously, " we broke up our pleasant party be-
fore we had intended."
Indeed, the affrays at the City Tavern were not always
devoid of bloodshed. In 1647, one Simon Root picked a
quarrel and fought here with Pieter Ebel, the jailer, in which
the former had the misfortune to have " a piece of his ear "
cut off by a cutlass in the jailer's hand. Root made a formal
application to the Director and Council for a certificate of
this fact, which was granted to him, — presumably for the
purpose of showing that the injured member had not been
" cropped " to satisfy the demands of justice.
The "Great Tavern," some time before it became the Town
Hall of New Amsterdam, had come to be the seat of a good
deal of business of a public nature. As early as 1647, it
182 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
was one of the three places in which all public notices were
posted, the others being the fort, and the barn of the West
India Company. Here, too, for a number of years, the Direc-
tor and Council seem to have frequently sat as a court for
the trial of the minor cases coming before them. These men
were often not exactly legal Solons, and the cases which came
before them were not infrequently of the most trivial de-
scription, for they had to deal with the childish squabbles of
sailors, soldiers, and rude and ignorant men and women from
half the countries of Europe, for the latter class was not rare
among the colonists. The fact that such quarrels had to be
adjudicated before the highest legal tribunal of the colony,
frequently lends a humorous character to the proceedings, of
which the members of the court often seem to be aware and
which shows itself in their decisions far more than does
that ponderous gravity upon which various writers have been
so fond of expatiating. The great Shirt Case, which occupied
the attention of the Director and his Council, in August, 1646,
may serve as an illustration of what has just been said. In
that case, one Claes Pietersen, a sailor, proceeded by attach-
ment process to recover two shirts, in the possession of an-
other sailor, Jan Jansen from Hoorn. Upon the hearing, the
defendant Jansen protested, rather guardedly, that the shirts
resembled some he had bought in Holland. The court de-
cided that as they had never discovered any fault in the plaintiff
Pietersen, the possession of the shirts should be given to him,
and that if the defendant could not prove that the shirts be-
longed to him, he should remain silent. The defendant Jan-
sen, not being satisfied with this disposition of the case, then
commenced a suit against Pietersen, somewhat in the nature
of an equitable bill of discovery, to compel him to disclose
where he got the shirts. Pietersen's answer to this was that
he purchased the shirts at Amsterdam, but was unable to say
in what street. The equities of this important matter having
been duly weighed by the Council, that body decided that
"they find not a particle of guilt in the defendant; where-
fore the plaintiff is commanded to keep silent, on condition
MEETING OF DELEGATES 183
that the defendant, when he goes to Holland, and shall have
arrived at Amsterdam, remains bound to point out the shop
where he bought the shirts"
Matters of a more important nature sometimes occupied
the attention of the Director and Council. Here, in the fall
and winter of 1653, was held a meeting of delegates from
the Dutch and English villages around New Amsterdam,1
for the purpose of devising some plan of common defence
against threatened Indian attacks, the West India Company
failing to provide adequate protection. The English dele-
gates had additional grievances which they proceeded to air
at this meeting, under the form of a M remonstrance," both
to the Director and Council and to the States-General of
the Netherlands : — they were not as well treated as they ex-
pected to be when they came to settle under the rule of the
New Netherland authorities ; moreover, discriminations were
made against them and in favor of the Dutch. These men,
some of whom — as the Middelburg or Newtown delegates —
had not yet been in the country much over a year, calmly
proceeded to inform the Director-General that " instead of
liberty, an arbitrary government is rearing its head among
them, and laws affecting the lives and property of the com-
monalty are enacted without the knowledge or approbation
of the latter." The unquestionable truth of these assertions
only made them the less palatable to Stuyvesant, and had
his path been clear, he would undoubtedly have terminated
the proceedings of the Convention at the City Tavern in
short order. Just about this time, however, the Dutch and
English fleets, under Van Tromp and Blake, had been pound-
ing each other to pieces in the English Channel, in the course
of the war growing out of the Navigation Act, — with con-
siderable disadvantage to the Dutch. It was impossible to
tell what the English in the New England colonies might
take it into their heads to do ; the Director-General therefore
restrained himself so far as to send a written communication
1 Two sessions were held, one beginning on the 25th of November, and the
other on the 10th of December, 1653.
184 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
to the convention, in which, after reminding the delegates that
they were an illegal body, with whose doings he was not at
all obliged to concern himself, he proceeded to examine and
to deny their statements, merely referring to the English as
the "instigators and leaders of these novelties."
The same cause which had induced the Director-General
to demean himself with unwonted moderation towards the
delegates led the latter to assume a lofty tone. The English
delegates from Heemstede, Rusdorp, Vlissingen, and Middel-
burg 1 (whose constituents, all told, probably did not amount
to a thousand men, women, and children), already saw, in
their mind's eye, the fleets and armies of Cromwell advancing
on New Amsterdam ; they immediately again demanded the
redress of their grievances, and notified Stuyvesant that in
case of refusal they would appeal to his superiors at Amster-
dam. This was too much: the persecutor of Melyn and of
Kuyter never could bear to hear talk of an appeal from his
decisions ; he flew into a rage, and dispersed the convention
so quickly that the delegates hardly had time to pay their
tavern bills. True to their word, the delegates sent their
" remonstrance " to the Amsterdam Chamber of the West
India Company, but it was rejected by that body with scant
courtesy.
A municipal government, modelled to a certain extent
upon that of the towns of the Netherlands, having been
granted to New Amsterdam by the West India Company,
in answer to long-continued requests from the citizens, the
new form of administration, under a schout, or sheriff, two
burgomasters, or superior magistrates, and five schepens, or
councillors, took effect at the beginning of the year 1653;
and the City Tavern was appointed as the place in which
the new municipal body should hold its sessions, both ad-
ministrative and judicial, for in addition to the ordinary
business of town or city government, the burgomasters and
schepens also formed a court of limited jurisdiction in both
civil and criminal matters. It soon became evident, how-
1 The later Hempstead, Jamaica, Flushing, and Newtown.
CITY TAVERN BECOMES THE TOWN HALL 185
ever, that it was highly desirable, for various reasons, that
the municipality should have entire control of the building in
which its business was carried on. The West India Com-
pany, in the embarrassed state of its affairs, had never cleared
away its debts for the construction of the City Tavern ; and
upon the 24th of December, 1653, the burgomasters and
schepens sent a petition to the Company at Amsterdam,
asking for a grant to them of the building, offering on their
part to pay the debts which remained due upon the same.
This petition was favorably entertained by the Amsterdam
Chamber of the Company, which, on the 18th of May, 1654,
granted the City Tavern " to the use of the Regents for the
time being, and for their business, but no one shall claim from
this any right to it individually, or to alienate or mortgage it
collectively." 1
The City Tavern, accordingly, became known henceforth
as the Stadt Huys, or Town Hall, and several important
changes soon took place around it. The building appears to
have stood originally upon the lower part of the slope of a
knoll of moderate elevation rising to the east of it, in such
a manner that while the eastern portion of its basement was
below, the western portion was above the surface of the
ground, and in this latter, facing the fort and the town, was
the entrance, or one of the entrances to the tavern. Soon
after the municipality acquired this building, fears began to
be entertained that the bank or open space between it and
the river might be seriously encroached upon by the waves.
It was decided therefore to fill out and to grade between the
Town House and the water's edge, and to protect this im-
provement from the tides by constructing a sheet-piling of
planks in front of it. In pursuance of this design, Charles
Bridges (or, as the Dutch called him, Van Brugge), who
held, in right of his wife, Sarah, the ground occupied by the
knoll above mentioned, lying east of the Town Hall, was
1 The fee simple of this property, which was afterwards granted by the city,
came to it, of course, through the confiscation of the property of the West India
Company by the English after the surrender, in 1 664.
186 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
notified, in April, 1656, by the court messenger, " for the
good of this town, to let him take, without any hindrance,
from the hill before his lot, as much earth as shall be re-
quired for filling in before the Town Hall."
The ground now covered by Pearl Street and a part of
Coenties Slip having been thus filled out and levelled, the
main entrance to the hall was made on the side towards the
river, and a small cupola for a bell having been placed upon
it, the building assumed the form in which it has been
presented to us by the sketch of the Labadist missionaries,
Danker and Sluyter, upon their visit to New York in 1679-
80, — probably the only reliable representation in existence
of this building as it was in its later days.1
Whether the Town Hall continued to be used for tavern
purposes, after its acquisition by the burgomasters, is not
clear. On the one hand, the business of the municipality
could have required but a small portion of the building, and
it was certainly used for festive purposes ; upon the con-
templated absence from New Amsterdam of Director-General
Stuyvesant, in the winter of 1654-55, the burgomasters make
the following entry in their minutes, under date of Saturday
afternoon, December 12, 1654 : " that, as the Right Honorable
intends to depart, the burgomasters and schepens shall com-
pliment him before he take his gallant voyage, and for this
purpose shall provide a gay repast on next Wednesday noon
at the Town Hall, in the Council Chamber. Wherefore a list
of what was required was made out, and what was considered
necessary was ordered."
1 The view of the Stadt Huys, given by Mr. D. T. Valentine, in his History of
New York, and also in the Manuals of the Common Council (which view has
generally been inserted in the works of later writers), besides being architectur-
ally impossible, with its leaning or " drunken " stepped gables, is also inaccurate
in several other respects. As for the appearance of this building in one of Mr.
V.'s imaginary sketches, purporting to be a view of the vicinity in 1658 (Man.
Com. Counc, for 1862, p. 529), the slight mistakes are made of placing the hill
along the shore to the west, instead of to the east, of the Town Hall, and in crown-
ing that edifice with a cupola, some ten or fifteen years before it was placed
there.
STADT HUYS WANTED FOR A SCHOOL 187
On the other hand, however, the space in and about the
Town House was frequently made use of in such a way as
to seem incompatible with the employment of any part of the
building for tavern purposes. In 1655, the structure is stated
to be encumbered with a large quantity of salt, placed there
on storage, and certain lodgers had also got possession of
different parts of it, or of its outbuildings, — one of these, in
particular, was a person who, having had the misfortune to
lose his own house by fire, had taken up his quarters here,
" in the little sail loft." At this time the burgomasters ordered
the premises to be cleared. In the same manner, in 1660, it
was found that the yard or enclosure of the Town House was
being used for the storage of lumber, brick, etc., and it was
ordered that a gate should be made in the rear, and that the
jailer should see that the trespasses were discontinued.
Whether any portion of this building was used for school
purposes, as has been claimed, is doubtful. On the 4th of
April, 1652, the Chamber of Directors of the West India
Company at Amsterdam gave the appointment of school-
master at New Amsterdam to Jan la Montagne, and he was
permitted to use the City Tavern, " if practicable." Some
time must have elapsed, however, before such an arrangement
could have gone into effect, and in the beginning of the suc-
ceeding year the City Tavern was appropriated to the use of
the burgomasters, as already shown. The writer has not been
able to find any evidence that the building was used for school
purposes, under the regime of the burgomasters : on the con-
trary, in November, 1656, Harmanus van Hoboken, then
schoolmaster, petitions those magistrates " to grant him the
hall and side room for the use of the school, and as a dwell-
ing, inasmuch as he, the petitioner, does not know how to
manage for the proper accommodation of the children during
winter, for they much require a place adapted for fire, and to
be warmed, for which their present tenement is wholly unfit."
The schoolmaster then goes on to show that he has a wife
and children, and is in straits to find accommodation for them,
and he asks that if the burgomasters cannot grant him the
188 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
rooms requested, they will allow him the rent of the back
room of a certain house, then occupied by one Geurt Coerten.
To this petition, the burgomasters answer that " the hall and
little room are not in repair, and are, moreover, wanted for
other purposes. He (petitioner) is allowed to rent said
house, for which one hundred guilders shall be paid him
yearly."
Here, then, in the Stadt Huys of New Amsterdam, the
worthy merchants and brewers, Indian traders and ship cap-
tains, who usually composed the body of burgomasters and
schepens of the little municipality, met and passed their ordi-
nances for the government of the town, or sat as a court of
justice to consider the numerous and sometimes queer con-
troversies which were brought before them. Naturally, they
were not men who were overstocked with legal lore. Pon-
derous folios and quartos, in hog-skin, of the civil and im-
perial laws, of the ordinances of the States-General and of the
States of Holland, and the well-thumbed " Roseboom's Re-
cueil" of the Statutes and Customs of Amsterdam, lay before
the magistrates, inviting them to lose themselves in the mazes
of those abstruse treatises ; they preferred, however, as a rule,
to render their decisions by the aid of what is sometimes
known as " horse sense." They were fond of settling cases
informally by inducing parties to accept their advice before
going to trial : failing this, they were apt to send the cases
for arbitration to one or two " good men," whom they would
select out of the community, with instructions to reconcile
the contending parties, if possible ; in one case, in the year
1662, where a question of the sewing of linen caps was in-
volved, the court went so far as to appoint certain " good
women " as arbitrators.
As to the portion of the Stadt Huys building used for the
sessions of the court, Mr. D. T. Valentine has found some
evidence, apparently, that it was the eastern side of the
second story, — for he asserts this to have been the fact. In
1670, however, Governor Francis Lovelace, who had acquired a
plot of ground immediately adjoining the Stadt Huys, upon the
GOVERNOR LOVELACE'S TAVERN 189
west, commenced the erection of " an inn, or ordinary " upon the
plot, and sent a communication to the magistrates in the early
part of that year to know whether they would allow him " to
build the upper part of the house something over the passage
of the town which lieth between the State House and the
lott, and to make a doore to go from the upper part of the
house into the Court's Chambers." This proposition — which
was agreed to by the magistrates, leaving it to the governor's
discretion to pay what was thought fit for " the vacant strooke
of ground " lying between the buildings, and moreover " not
to cut off the entrance into the prison doore, or common
gaol " — would seem to indicate that the court-room was
upon the western side of the second floor, in 1670, at any rate.
The term " chambers " used in the communication is hardly
likely to have referred to private rooms of the magistrates, as
tavern connection, though possibly very convenient in some
cases, might have led to public scandal against those high
officials. The tavern of Governor Lovelace, above referred
to, is shown upon the Danker and Sluyter view of 1679.
The Stadt Huys grounds were infringed upon, not only by
the grant to Governor Lovelace, but by several other grants,
made from time to time. During the years 1664 to 1666, the
entire front along Duke Street, as it was then called, or the
present Stone Street, was granted in very small lots to va-
rious individuals, and only an alley or passageway to the rear
of the hall was retained : this passageway opened upon Stone
Street just about where the doorway of the present building
No. 40 Stone Street now is. Towards the close of the seven-
teenth century, the hall building began to show signs of dilapi-
dation, to such an extent that, although it had only been
standing a little more than fifty years, it gradually came to
be considered unsafe. In 1696, the subject of erecting a new
City Hall was under discussion ; in 1698, the ground for the
new building was selected, at the northeast corner of Wall
and the present Nassau streets, and finally, in August, 1699,
the historic building and its site were sold at public auction.
Within the walls of this edifice, or, in fine weather, upon
190 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the open space between it and the river, the citizens of New
Amsterdam were wont to gather and to discuss matters of pub-
lic and of private interest, as well as the news of the day,
through more than half a century of a period to which are
usually ascribed some of the most interesting occurrences of
modern times. Here, as tidings from across the ocean tardily
came to be known, men talked of the destruction of the mon-
archy in England and of the new commonwealth there ; of
the latter days of the Thirty Years' War ; of Louis XIV. and
of the French power, threatening all Europe; of the great
naval wars between England and the Netherlands for the
supremacy of the seas ; of the Turkish hordes before Vienna,
and of their flight before John Sobieski ; of the wonderful
revolutions which placed William of Orange upon the throne
of England and at the front of European politics. The names
of Cromwell and of Richelieu, of Mazarin and of Colbert ; of
the murdered King Charles, and of the fugitive King James;
of great admirals and generals, Van Tromp and De Ruyter,
Turenne and Luxembourg, — were once familiar sounds in
this locality.1 Now, all is changed: crowded warehouses
cover the land far out into what was the river of those
da}rs ; and in front of the spot where were the windows of
the court-room in which Leisler and Milborne were con-
demned to suffer death for treason, the trains of the elevated
railway sweep round into Coenties Slip.
The site of the beginnings of its municipal government
would have been carefully preserved, or at any rate honored
with a substantial monument, by almost any small town of
New England, but in the City of New York it has not been
thought necessary to mark the site of the Stadt Huys by
anything more than a small bronze plate placed high up on
1 Council Minutes, 6 July, 1672. " Tuesday next, about 10 or 11 of ye clock
before noon is appointed to make proclamation of the Warre," at the State
House. This was the war by England and France against the United Provinces,
in which war New York was captured by the Dutch in the following year, and in
which William III. the young Prince of Orange, newly appointed Commander-in-
chief of the forces of the Netherlands, displayed his abilities under very trying
circumstances.
SITE OF THE STADT HUYS
191
the front of the modern building standing at this point ; the
inscription upon this plate may doubtless be read from the
street by any person provided with a good opera-glass.
The corporation which has so much of the tax-payers' money
to spend for all sorts of necessary and of unnecessary objects
has perhaps spent a good deal of it to worse advantage than
if it had acquired the site of its first home, and thereon built,
for some of its municipal purposes, a building designed to
reproduce as far as possible the historic structure.
The site of the Stadt Huys is at present occupied by a
common warehouse, tall and dismal, and by a liquor saloon
which may represent a continuous flow of the tap at this spot,
from the days of the Great Tavern and of Governor Love-
lace's " ordinary."
CHAPTER XVI
THE "ENGLISH QUARTER," AND THE GRANTS TO THOMAS
WILLET AND TO RICHARD SMITH. — WILLIAM PATER-
SON, THE SCOTCHMAN, AND HIS ADVENTURES. — WHO
WAS HE? — AN HISTORICAL PROBLEM
F I ^HE present block of ground lying between Stone and
1 Pearl streets, Coenties Alley and Hanover Square,
which constituted, in the seventeenth century, the small
tract situated east of the Stadt Huys and between Hoogh
Straet and the river shore, became, at an early day, a sort of
English quarter in the town. Here, in 1645, Thomas Willet
received a grant of the land lying "next to the Great
Tavern," a parcel of irregular shape, averaging about one
hundred and seventy-five feet in width, and extending from
the road, or Hoogh Straet, to the river, — a distance of
something over one hundred feet. This parcel seems to
have formed a hill, or bluff of moderate height, which was
levelled — in part, at any rate — about the year 1656, for
the purpose of filling out and grading the open space along
the shore which formed what is now Pearl Street in this
vicinity, of which proceeding some notice has already been
taken.1 Who this Thomas Willet, the original grantee, was,
has not been very clearly ascertained. He has been con-
stantly confounded by various writers with Captain Thomas
Willet of Plymouth Colony, who afterwards engaged in trade
between New Amsterdam and the New England towns, and
who, after the surrender to the English in 1664, was ap-
pointed the first mayor of the City of New York. That he
was of kin to Captain Thomas Willet is not at all improbable ;
but examination fails to disclose the nature of the connection,
1 See ante, page 185.
C ok. nt iks Alley.
Looking towards Stone Street. The ancient Stadt Huys Lane,
with part of the site of the Stadt Huys.
THOMAS WILLET
193
if any existed. About all that seems to be known of the
antecedents of Thomas Willet of New Amsterdam is that in
his marriage record in the Dutch Church he is described as
being from Bristol, in England.
Thomas Willet, the grantee of the Hoogh Straet land,
appears in 1643 — then being a young man of twenty-two
years of age — as one of the English soldiers in the employ
of the West India Company. As such, he was one of those
who took part in the massacre of the Indians, by Director
Kieft's orders, on the night of February 25, 1643, at Pa-
vonia; and upon the next day he was one of the witnesses of
the killing of the Dutchman, Dirck Straetmaker, and his wife,
who in spite of warnings to the contrary had insisted on visit-
ing the scene of the horrid butchery of the preceding night,
where the bodies of the slain were still lying; he and his
wife were there murdered by some of the enraged Indians
who had already begun to gather in the vicinity, — the
Dutch soldiers being too far away to afford relief.
It was in the fall of this same year, 1643, that Thomas
Willet married an English girl, Sarah, the daughter of
Thomas Cornell. The latter, with his family, had emigrated
to America several years before, from the shire of Essex in
England, and had acquired from the Indians a tract lying
just east of the Bronx River; here he established a planta-
tion, which with those of his neighbors, Jonas Bronck and
Edward Jessup, formed the outposts of civilization in the
vicinity of New Amsterdam along the East River; Thomas
Cornell's tract soon took the name of Cornell's Neck, and
his farmhouse was situated nearly two miles southeast of the
present village of West Farms.
After his marriage to Sarah Cornell, Thomas Willet ap-
pears to have remained at New Amsterdam for several years,
still apparently in the employ of the West India Company.
His presence, with his captain, Unclerhill, at the time of the
drunken onslaught of the latter on Dominie Bogardus's party
at the City Tavern, in 1644, has already been spoken of.1
1 See ante, page 180.
13
194 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Although his ground-brief for the land on Hoogh Straet was
only obtained in 1645, there is evidence that he had built
upon the plot before that time, his house occupying very
nearly the site of the present building, No. 48 Stone Street,
— now an old tea and coffee warehouse. In the summer or
autumn of 1645, he appears to have been engaged in a joint
mercantile speculation with the skipper Juriaen Blanck and
Doctor Kiersted's brother Jochem, in relation to which the
partners had a disagreement which brought them into court.
After this we have no further notices of Thomas Willet; he
must, however, have died within a year or so from the last-
mentioned date, for in November, 1647, his widow Sarah
married Charles Bridges, of Canterbury.
At the mention of Canterbury, thoughts of the old city
of the monk St. Augustine and of Thomas a Becket will
occur to many, — where the majestic cathedral, the mother-
church of England, still looks down (or recently did, for
some serious inroads have been made by modern innovations)
on massive city walls and gates, upon quaint streets lined with
overhanging houses, and upon the Stour, placidly flowing by
the city and through hop fields and meadows, orchards and
gardens, — much as it all was in Charles Bridges' time; for
Canterbury is one of those eddies, lying outside the main cur-
rent of time, where all things slowly revolve in a limited circle,
while the greater flow sweeps by with its perpetual change.
Causes of which we are ignorant transferred Charles
Bridges from the ancient capital of the Kent-men to the
Dutch island of Curacoa, in the West Indies, prior to 1639,
in which year we find him making a voyage to New Amster-
dam as supercargo of the ship "White Raven." Bridges
early became a thoroughly Teutonized Englishman, and was
not only called by the Dutch, but called himself, by the
Dutch equivalent of his name, Carel van Brugge. He rose
into prominence in the Dutch island, and in 1644 was ap-
pointed member of the Council and keeper of the stores at
that place. He seems to have been somewhat of a favorite
with Director Stuyvesant, and when the latter was trans-
CHARLES BRIDGES
195
f erred from Curacoa to New Amsterdam, in the early part
of 1647, Bridges, or Van Brugge, accompanied him from the
West Indies, and upon reaching New Netherland, he received
the appointment of commissary at Fort Orange, or Albany,
where he appears to have taken the place of the unfortunate
surgeon, Harmanus van der Bogaerdt.1 As he was married
just about this period to the widow Willet, it may be presumed
that he resided at Fort Orange for some time, as Ave hear
nothing further of him till 1651, when he was again in New
Amsterdam, holding the office of commissary of provincial
accounts, and in 1652 he was made Provincial Secretary.
For many years, Bridges and his family, including his young
step-sons, William and Thomas Willet, resided part of the
time in the house on Hoogh Straet, which had belonged to
Mrs. Bridges' first husband, or in Vlissingen, now Flushing
upon Long Island, where Bridges early acquired interests.
After the surrender of New Netherland to the English,
in 1661, Charles Bridges, or Van Brugge, says Doctor
O'Callaghan, "resumed his English name, appearing under
it as one of the patentees of Flushing. With the return of
the Dutch in 1673, he became again Carel van Brugge and
was appointed clerk of the English towns upon Long Island,
residing at Flushing, where he died, August, 1682." His
wife Sarah, who survived him, married for her third husband
John Lawrence, Jr., of Flushing; and some time prior to
1686, the property on Hoogh Straet was divided between
Lawrence and Thomas Willet, son of the original grantee,
Lawrence retaining the house and the eastern half of the plot
of ground.
At the time of this partition, however, Thomas Willet's
patrimony had been reduced in size by the sale of two small
parcels from it many years before, by Charles Bridges and
his wife, as it would seem. Of these parcels, one was a lot
adjoining the Stadt Huys Lane, which came into the pos-
session of George Woolsey, probably soon after the period of
our survey. Woolsey was, it is believed, a native of the
1 See ante, page 70.
196 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
ancient fishing town of Yarmouth, in the County of Norfolk,
on the east coast of England, and as early as 1646 was the
clerk or manager of Isaac Allerton, the active trader through
whose hands passed most of the trade between New Amster-
dam and the New England settlements, and whose warehouse
stood upon the shore of the East River near the southwest
corner of the present Pearl Street and Peck Slip. In
December, 1647, about a month after the marriage of Charles
Bridges, we find the marriage of George Woolsey to Rebecca
Cornell, who was in all probability a sister of Mrs. Bridges.
Just when Woolsey acquired this lot at the Stadt Huys Lane
we are ignorant, as we are also of the time at which he built
upon it; it was undoubtedly not until after the grading of
the hill at this point, in 1656, in order to fill out in front of
the Town Hall, as already mentioned; perhaps it was not
until after 1659, when his employer, Isaac Allerton, died, and
the business passed into other hands. Be this as it may, we
find George Woolsey residing here for several years, until in
1668 he sold the premises to William Paterson. The dingy
brick building which now occupies this site — a bagging and
cooperage warehouse, No. 75 Pearl Street, the entrance to
which stands in the perpetual twilight of the elevated rail-
way structure above — is dull and commonplace enough to
afford some ground for an impression that no associations of
interest could possibly have marked the spot; yet here was
apparently the residence for a time of a singular character,
whose history, if fully known, might throw a great deal of
light upon one of the historical mysteries of the seventeenth
century, which has hitherto baffled many determined investi-
gators. The matter seems to be of sufficient interest and
importance to justify a digression from the plan of our
survey.
William Paterson, to whom George Woolsey sold his
house near the Town Hall, was a Scotchman who appeared
in New York in or about the year 1668. He called himself
a merchant, or trader, but his trading consisted principally,
so far as we are informed, in the importation of liquor-—
WILLIAM PATERSON'S HOUSES
197
mainly rum, of course — from the West Indies. One cir-
cumstance attending Paterson's coming to New York cannot
fail to arrest our attention; while most of the new traders,
both Dutch and English, who had come to the small town,
had engaged in business here cautiously, usually hiring a
house until they were well established, and at most only pur-
chasing a location for their store or warehouse, Paterson,
within a very short time after his arrival, acquired possession
of no less than six different pieces of property, four of which
already contained houses upon them, while upon another of
his lots he himself seems to have had a building erected soon
after his purchase.1
Of Paterson's life at New York we know but little; he
appears to have possessed a keen sense of injustice, coupled
with a quick temper, and this soon brought him into trouble
there. In the early part of the spring of 1669, Paterson had
brought a suit upon an account and other matters against
one John Garland, and had recovered judgment. He was
now endeavoring to obtain either the collection of his debt or
security for the same from Garland; when another suit was
brought against the latter by Isaac Bedlo, before the mayor
and aldermen in the municipal court. Bedlo, being himself
an alderman at the time, was of course a member of the
court. This cause came on at the City Hall upon the 16th
of March, 1669; no opposition was made by Garland, and
1 These parcels acquired by Paterson were as follows : —
I. The house and lot above mentioned as having been purchased of George
Woolsey, at the corner of the present Coenties Alley and Pearl Street.
II. A small house and lot on the east side of the present William Street, near
Wall.
III. A house with nearly half an acre of ground lying upon an interior lane or
passageway at one time called Smith's Street, but afterwards closed, a frontage
having been obtained upon the later Smith's now William Street.
IV. A house and lot on the south side of Pearl Street between the fort and
the river.
V. A small parcel of ground forming the portion lying towards Stone Street
of the building known at present as the Old Cotton Exchange, fronting Han-
over Square.
VI. A small lot of vacant ground at the southeast corner of the present Wall
and William streets.
198 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
judgment was ordered against him upon the spot, for 3,727
florins' wampum, and an execution was ordered to be issued
immediately. Paterson, who was present in the court, de-
nounced this proceeding indignantly; it was only he said,
"in color to deceive him and to prevent him from collecting
his debt from Garland;" furthermore, the court was in no
condition to pass any judgment, because, excluding Alderman
Bedlo, the prescribed number of members was not complete.
As a matter of fact, the court was composed entirely of old
Dutch residents, and consisted, besides Cornells van Steen-
wyck, the mayor, of Alderman Bedlo, Francois Boon, and
Christopher Hooghlandt. In a matter taking the form of an
issue between one of their own members and a stranger Scotch-
man, the action of the court was not likely to be materially
different from that of more highly organized tribunals in
similar cases, and we find that Paterson's protest not only
received but scant consideration, but that, to complete the
rather suspicious appearance of the case, Garland's attorney,
who was present, rose and stated to the court that his client
"found himself very much aggrieved by said judgments, and
asked for an arrest " (that is, stay of proceedings) " till the
return of his Honor the Governor, that he might petition for
an appeal in said causes ; " this the complaisant court allowed
him at once.
Paterson does not appear to have become speedily recon-
ciled to the proceedings of the Solons of the Mayor's Court
in his case. He transferred a portion of his wrath to the
Marshal of the Court, who held the executions against Gar-
land ; and in a few days we find that officer, Henry Newton,
bringing "an action of Disfamation " against Paterson. In
this he declares 1 that the Scotchman " hath greatly disfamed
this plaintiff in doing his office as Marishal of this citty, in
calling this plaintiff Roag, & would proeve him to be one
before the Govern1"." The indignant court upon this occa-
sion imposed upon Paterson for the insult to their officer a
fine of 25 guilders, "and recommend him to take warning
1 On the 6th of April, 1669.
AFFAIR OF CAPTAIN BAKER 199
not to affront or abuse any of the officers for the future any
more, or that a greater penalty shal be imposed upon him
according to the merits thereof."
Greatly irritated, no doubt, by these proceedings, Paterson
seems soon to have departed from New York upon what
appears to have been a trading or mercantile expedition to
Albany; there he speedily fell into a worse difficulty than
his previous one, and became the central figure in an affair
which was the great topic of the day throughout the Colony,
and which threatened for a time to bring about very serious
difficulties between the Dutch colonists and their English
rulers.
The captain of the English garrison at Albany at this time
was one John Baker. If, as has been asserted, all the
varieties of human character have been portrayed in the
writings of Shakespeare, it is quite manifest that this man's
type is to be found in Ancient Pistol. He was a swash-
buckler of the first magnitude. Just what excited Captain
Baker's ire against William Paterson at Albany we do not
know, but to all appearance it was jealousy. Paterson, as it
would seem, had, upon coming to Albany, hired a small
house of Jochem Wessells, a baker by occupation, but who
was at this time engaged in trading with the Indians. There
is some evidence that this Jochem was the son of Paterson's
near neighbor in New York, the old fisherman Wessell
Evertsen; the sites of his house, and of that occupied by
Paterson, were near the north gate of Albany, along the
river shore, in a place upon which are situated at the present
day some very dismal old houses, just north of the depot-yard
of the New York Central Railway. The house hired of
Jochem Wessells was tenanted by Paterson and his servant-
man, who seem to have taken their meals at the house of
Paterson's landlord. It was at the bench in front of the
latter house, where Paterson sat on the evening of July 31,
1669, smoking a pipe after supper and conversing with
Gertruyd, Jochem Wessells' wife, when Captain Baker,
coming from a neighboring tavern, walked up to Paterson
200 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
and accosted him with a very foul imputation and insult.
Paterson replied in a suitable manner and with cool temper,
but Captain Baker, whose evident intention was, as Paterson
states, "to pike a quarrel," after threatening to cut off
Paterson's ears, etc., struck him in the face. Paterson
hereupon stepped back into the doorway and warned his
adversary against repeating the act, while Jochem's wife
endeavored to separate the two men, but Baker again struck
Paterson, and this time succeeded in bringing the Scotch
blood into full play. Paterson sprang at his enemy, grasped
him around the body, hurled him to the ground, and thrashed
him at his pleasure, till the bystanders interfered in compas-
sion on the unlucky captain. Baker, beside himself with
rage, now repaired to the fort, where he ordered out a small
detachment of his men, with whom he returned to the scene
of battle. Finding the door of Jochem Wessells' house
fastened, Baker ordered his men to burst it open, but the
whole business was so manifestly lawless that the soldiers
refused to obey his orders, whereupon the captain burst open
the door himself with the butt of a musket. Not finding
Paterson here, he having retired to his own house, the cap-
tain contented himself with striking and abusing Jochem
Wessells' wife, whom he ordered to be put under arrest;
after which, in Paterson's words, "he came running with his
said guard to the house and lodging of this complainant, and
without knoking or warning of this complainant that he
would be in the house, he charged his said guard to break
open the door of the complainants house . . . which they
likewise refused to do; and this complainant, hearing the
noise, being just ready to go abed, called out to them and
said, 4 Stay, Captain Baker, I will open the door. ' But the
said Baker replied, 1 No, but I will break it open, ' which he
likewise did, . . . which being done, he came in with his
sword drawn and pointed at this complainant with intent to
have killed him, which he likewise would have done, in case
it was not hindered by the Providence of God." 1
1 The form of this providential hindrance is shown by the testimony of a
witness, one Lambert Aelberts van Neck, a Dutch merchant from New York,
ARREST OF PATERSON
201
Paterson was now taken as a prisoner to the fort by
Captain Baker, but that son of Mars in his blind fury had
unwittingly stirred up an enemy against himself likely to
give him much more trouble than did the bruises inflicted
upon him by William Paterson; this was the Dutch com-
munity of Albany; the rights of criminal and of civil juris-
diction secured to their courts by the articles of surrender to
the English had been so grossly violated by this exploit of
Baker, that though the Dutch probably had but little personal
interest in the stranger, William Paterson, yet as a matter of
principle they took up his cause at once, and as one man.
Late as it was on the night of the 31st of July, the magis-
trates were convened, and proceeded in a body to the fort,
where they demanded Paterson's release. This was refused
by Baker at first, but within twenty-four hours he began to
see the danger of his position, and assented to Paterson's
discharge.
In the mean time the Dutch magistrates permitted no
delay. Though the next day was Sunday, the 1st of August,
they held an extraordinary session in the afternoon, at which
Paterson was present, and at which papers were prepared
for transmission to the Governor and Council at New York.
These were probably presented in person by Paterson, and
they were quickly acted upon by the Governor, as the act
with which Baker was charged was of a nature to stir up
strife and sedition. Baker was consequently ordered to
answer the charges at once, and he did so in a curious docu-
ment, in which with the usual impudence of his kind he
states that merely on account of his having spoken "in a
familiar jesting manner " to Paterson he was made the victim
of a most atrocious assault by that individual, " for in a very
outrageous manner, he flew upon this defendant with so fierce
who was among the crowd attracted to the spot by the uproar. He says that
Paterson offered to open the door, " but before he came the door lay prostrate
at his feet. Then Captain Baker said, ' Here, you Scotch dog, you must come
along ; ' and violently entering with his sword drawn, Mr. Paterson caught him
around the body, and Captain Baker tried to run Mr. Paterson through with his
sword from above."
202 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
an assault that he beat him to the ground, defendant not in
the least suspecting that he durst have been so presumptious
as to have attempted such an action in the street, without
respect to this defendants (office ?) under yor Honr." The
captain furthermore avers that he did not so much care for
the beating he received personally, " but that he considered
it done in contempt of Government," and that he therefore
considered it his duty to place Paterson under arrest; "but
he falsely allegeth that I kept him prisoner for twenty-one
hours, for after one hour was expired, he stay'd the rest of
the time for his recreation." He considers Paterson as a
contentious fellow, who "hath stuffed this, his information,
with lyes & idle allegacions; and further that he is not
the first by many that he hath affronted and abused at
Albany." He hopes that Paterson will now be made a
severe example of.
The reading of this precious production appears to have
completed the disgust of the Governor and Council. An
order was made upon the 18th of August suspending Captain
Baker from his command, and allowing Paterson to prose-
cute him in the civil courts, and ordering the soldiers of his
guard to give in their depositions. As they all gave in their
depositions with great promptness against their commander,
one may infer that he was not a very popular officer.
On the 26th of August, an attachment or arrest, in the
sum of £200, was issued against Captain Baker's house and
effects at Albany, and — strangely enough — upon the night
of the 28th of August an attempt was made to burn the
house of William Paterson, in New York. As to this latter
affair and its cause, we have nothing but surmises ; all that
we are informed is that upon the 2d of September, the
culprit, Daniel Dillon, aged sixteen years, for attempting to
set fire to William Paterson's house "by putting a brand of
fire under the door of said house," was sentenced "to be
whipt twelve slashes," to be kept in prison at the pleasure
of the court, and to be banished from the city "during
his life."
PATERSON LEAVES NEW YORK 203
A special court, composed of several prominent citizens,
and headed by Cornells van Steenwyck, the Mayor of New
York, had been appointed to try Paterson's cause against
Captain Baker. There was evidently a desire in several
quarters that the matter should not be carried to too rigorous
conclusions, the offence, in its criminal aspect, including
technically the capital crime of burglary. Captain Baker had
humbled himself so far as to write the following document :
" Mr Paterson : I am contented to submit to the order of ye
Committee appointed by his honor the Governor Col. Lovelace, to
determine the difference betweene you and myselfe, and do con-
fesse what I did at Albany to you was Rashly and unadvisedly
done, and I am willing to be friends with you & desire yr excuse
for my Passion, and so do drinck to you."
Paterson himself seems likewise to have been anxious to
have this troublesome case disposed of as soon as possible.
His sojourn at New York and at Albany had been attended
with several annoying experiences, and at this time he
appears to have been endeavoring to close up his not very
profitable " trading " ventures at New York, preparatory to
returning to Scotland. Upon the 6th of October, 1669, we
find that the special court or commission appointed to try
Baker's case, having made a recommendation that the parties
should come to some agreement, reports that " Mr. Paterson
flong up his papers and left the case to be decided by the
committee." They thereupon, having found that Captain
Baker was in fault, order him to pay to Paterson the sum of
200 guilders sewant, or about $80 of the present currency, —
so the case appears to have ended.1
Paterson, at about this time, or in the fall of 1669, quitted
New York without having disposed of any of his lands and
houses in that town. How these were managed,2 or in what
1 By an order of the Council dated May 14, 1670, Captain Baker was dismissed
from the service.
2 Probably by agents, for a number of years afterwards we are informed
that " Mr. Bayard " — probably Nicholas Bayard — had a letter of attorney from
Paterson, " in 1669, when he went away." In the following year he gave another
letter of attorney to one William Taylor.
204 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
condition they were left we do not know, for no further
entries appear in the records respecting him or his property
until the capture of New York by the Dutch took place, in
the year 1673. At that time all of Paterson's property in the
city was confiscated and granted to various persons by the
Dutch Governor Colve, on the ground that Paterson, being
a resident of Scotland, was not protected by the articles of
surrender. After the restoration of New York to the Eng-
lish, and about 1675, it would appear that Paterson, through
an attorney, attempted to recover some compensation for the
loss of his property, but the records are extremely meagre,
amounting to little more than a calendar, in which Paterson's
claim appears two or three times. The occupants of the
premises were sustained by the court in their possession
under Governor Colve's grants; but a memorandum was
made that "in consideration of Mr. Paterson's loosing his
houses" he should have "for each house a lot of vacant
ground in some convenient place within this city, to bee laid
out by the magistrates with the first convenience." No
action, however, appears to have taken place by the magis-
trates to carry out this recommendation.
Paterson appears, however, to have had sufficient influence
in England to induce the Duke of York to interest himself
in the affair, for upon the 17th of May, 1676, we find the
Governor and Council making a minute in their records,
wherein after reciting that Mr. Paterson's case "having
been taken into consideration in obedience to His Royal
Highness' commands," they proceed to state that "such of
his houses as were disposed of in the time of the warre being
confirmed to ye Possessors by the Court of Assize, it is not
knowne how hee can be relieved therein."
Ten years were now suffered to elapse by Paterson, when,
in June, 1681, he being then described as a merchant of
Edinburgh, we find him executing a power of attorney to
George Lockhart, chirurgeon, a Scotchman residing at the
time in New York,1 authorizing him "to sue for and recover
1 Lockhart was quite prominently interested in the proprietary grant of
East Jersey, of which he claimed himself to be a large owner. In 1683, he
A HISTORICAL QUESTION 205
all and sundry houses, plantations, etc., belonging to me in
New York, Albany and the colonies of New England, or in
any other parts of America whatsoever, and to sell and
dispose of the same," etc. Under this power of attorney
(which was executed at Edinburgh before Watts Marshall
and J. Barbour, witnesses) several releases were executed
in the year 1685 by Lockhart, to the former grantees of
Paterson's property.
These proceedings terminate Paterson's connection with
New York, so far as appears from the records, and we are
now brought to the question of historical significance sug-
gested in the early portion of the sketch of that individual's
transactions at New York. The question is this: Was
William Paterson, trader at New York in the years 1668 and
1669, the same William Paterson who nearly a quarter of a
century later, in England, originated the plan for the estab-
lishment of the Bank of England, and thus laid the founda-
tion for the whole system of modern finance ?
About the early life of the man who may be regarded as
the real founder of the Bank of England, there has hitherto
been an almost impenetrable veil of obscurity, and it seems to
have been Paterson's desire to increase, as far as possible,
the air of mystery which encompassed him. A voluminous
writer of pamphlets in favor of the varied projects of his
fertile brain, he chose to issue them anonymously. Vigor-
ously attacked and denounced by his numerous enemies on
account of his financial theories, and later by reason of his
unfortunate Darien scheme, which had like to have set the
whole island of Britain by the ears, he rarely condescended
to notice their vilification of himself and their insinuations
as to his past life. Probably the necessity of reply was not
very great, for neither Paterson's enemies nor his friends
seem to have been able, in spite of what must have been the
made a proposition to the Board of Proprietors of that province, that upon re-
ceiving the appointment of marshal, with a grant of ten acres in the village of
Perth, he would at his own expense huild a prison and town-house there. (See
Doc. relating to Colonial History of N. J., i. 430.)
206 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
most strenuous exertions on their part, to find much that was
definitely known either against him or in his favor. " Of his
early life," says Macaulay, "little is known except that he
was a native of Scotland, and that he had been in the West
Indies. In what character he had visited the West Indies
was a matter about which his contemporaries differed. His
friends said that he had been a missionary; his enemies that
he had been a buccaneer. He seems to have been gifted by
nature with fertile invention, an ardent temperament, and
great powers of persuasion, and to have acquired somewhere
in the course of his vagrant life a perfect knowledge of
accounts."
Premising that the name of William Paterson is a very
common one in Scotland, the fact remains that there are
several singular coincidences which seem to go far in sup-
port of a theory that the persons referred to above under the
same name are one and the same individual. The principal
accounts of what is known of the life of William Paterson
have been written by Mr. Saxe Bannister1 and by Mr. Wil-
liam Pagan,2 but neither of these writers has contributed
much to our knowledge of Paterson 's earlier years.
In discussing this matter, it is necessary first of all to
notice an alleged discovery made by Mr. Bannister, which, if
the facts stated therein be reliable, effectually disposes of any
notion that William Paterson, the financier and projector of
the Scotch colony of Darien, could have been the person of
that name in New York in 1668-69. This is a statement
respecting his own age, claimed by Bannister to exist in the
will of William Paterson, — a statement not only of an
extraordinary nature in itself, but one which, though of the
utmost importance to their respective writings, is treated
with such amazing carelessness, by both Bannister and
Pagan, as to deprive their remarks upon the subject of any
substantial value.
1 Life and Trials of William Paterson, by S. Bannister, 1858-59.
2 The Birthplace and Parentage of William Paterson. By W. Pagan. Edin-
burgh, 1865.
William Pa t e rson.
From a wash-drawing in the British Museum.
WILLIAM PATERS ON THE FINANCIER 207
After fixing, according to his belief, the place of Pater-
son's birth to a farm called Skipmyre in the parish of
Tinwall, in the southern portion of Dumfries shire, in
Scotland1 (of which parish, however, no ancient baptismal
records exist), Bannister remarks (page 35): "The time of
his birth can be settled exactly from his will, in which he
states himself to be, at its date, the 1st day of July, 1718,
sixty-three years and three months old, which refers his
birth to March or April, 1655." On page 425 of his work,
Bannister gives in full (or in what purports to be so) the will
of William Paterson, in which there is not the least allusion
to his age ; nor is this explained or corrected in a subsequent
edition of Bannister's work.
To make matters worse, Pagan, in his sketch of Paterson's
life, says (page 6) that the will, as quoted by Mr. Bannister,
from the record in Doctors' Commons, London, runs as fol-
lows, etc., etc.: "In witness whereof I have hereto sub-
scribed my name and put my seal, at Westminster this 1st
day of July, 1718, in the sixtieth year and third month of
my age. (Signed) Wm. Paterson."
Under ordinary circumstances, it would be necessary, first,
to resort to the original will, to know what this statement as
to age really was (if it existed in fact), and then to examine
why this strange clause was inserted at all in the instrument,
— for most persons who are familiar with the forms of Eng-
lish wills must recognize the fact that a statement of age is
1 Not far from where, in an almost Italian landscape of lakes, groves, meadows,
cornfields, and distant mountains, Lochmaben stands, in the vale of Annan, — the
land of the Johnstones, sung by many a Scottish poet, and enriched with many
a legend of border warfare :
" As I came by Locbmaben gate,
There I saw the Johnstones riding :
Away they go, and fear no foe,
Wi' their drums a-beating, colors flying.
A' the lads o' Annandale
Came there their valiant chiefs to follow,
Brave Burleigh, Ford, and Ramerscale,
Wi' Winton, and the gallant Rollo," etc.
208 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
most unusual in such documents, and is apparently made
for some distinct purpose.
There are, however, so many clear indications that this
statement of age (either of sixty or of sixty-three years) is
erroneous, and that Paterson's age must have been at least
ten years greater than the highest age given above, that we
may assume, for the present purpose, that one or the other of
these ages is really given in the will, without at all conceding
the accuracy of the statement there made. What Paterson's
mental condition was at the time of making this will (exe-
cuted only a few months before his death) we cannot tell.
He had undoubtedly fallen upon dark days, had given up the
house in Westminster, in which he had long resided ; and at
the time of making his will, he was staying at the Ship Inn
(on the north side of the Strand, some half-dozen houses west
of old Temple Bar, in London), in a condition which appears
to have approached destitution. Whether age, poverty,
disappointments, and sickness may have impaired the once
active memory of this strange character, or whether the age
statement was designedly inserted to increase the mystery
about a period of his life which he wished to remain obscure,
one can only surmise. Some matters in apparent contradic-
tion should now be noticed.
I. William Paterson's ingenious and profound financial
theories are known to have been elaborated by him and
brought to public attention in several European countries
(though unsuccessfully) as early as 1686 or 1687, — at which
period, if his age as given in the will is correct, he must have
been only twenty-eight or thirty years old. This, of course,
is not impossible, and Paterson's ideas are undoubtedly, to a
certain extent, the intuitions of genius ; but they are intui-
tions founded upon a knowledge which must have been
acquired only by long and varied observation of human
nature, and by experience of the most diverse business
operations ; insomuch that it is very difficult to believe that
he should have been able to acquire and to digest such
knowledge at the age named.
HODGES' PAMPHLET ON PATERSON 209
II. It seems to be generally conceded that Paterson's
wandering life began with his flight from Scotland in his
youth, to escape trouble arising in some way out of the reli-
gious persecutions under which the Scottish Presbyterians
were suffering at the hands of the dominant Church of Eng-
land party, which, though few in numbers, became the
ruling faction at the Restoration of monarchy in Eng-
land in 1660. It appears to be further conceded that after
a short sojourn in England, during which he followed the
avocation of a pedler, he made his way thence to the West
Indies.
In an old pamphlet in the Bodleian Library, Mr. Eliot
Warburton, who wrote a semi-historical romance, of which
Paterson was the hero, found it stated, as he claims, that
Paterson's family, being alarmed by intelligence of warrants
having been issued against him, on a charge of being a con-
federate of the proscribed Presbyterians, " he went speedily
away into England, and took refuge there with a relative of
his mother, a widow at Bristol."
A scurrilous pamphlet was written by one Hodges, in the
interest of Paterson's enemies, at the time of the Darien
scheme, or about the year 1699. In this it is said that he
"came from Scotland in his younger years, with a pack on
his back, whereof the print may be seen, if he be alive.
Having travelled this country some years, he seated himself
under the wing of a warm widow near Oxford, where,
finding that preaching was an easier trade than his own, he
soon found himself gifted with an anaclets spirit. Prophets
being generally despised at home, he went on the propaganda
fide account to the West Indies, and was one of those who
settled the isle of Providence a second time. But meeting
some hardships and ill-luck there, to wit, a Governor being
imposed on them by the king of England, which his con-
science could not admit of, the prospects of their constitution
were altered, and they could no longer have a free port and
sanctuary for buccaneers, pirates, and such vermin. . . .
This disappointment obliged Predicant Paterson to shake
14
210 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the dust from off his shoes, and leave that island under his
anathema." Now let us see what the reference to the island
of Providence means.
It was about in the year 1664 that the freebooter, Mans-
veld (of unknown nationality), who had acquired a leadership
among the buccaneers or piratical adventurers who then
swarmed in the West Indies, conceived the design of form-
ing a permanent establishment or headquarters upon one of
the islands of the West Indian seas. The spot selected was
the small island of Santa Catalina, afterwards known as
Providence, situated a little more than a hundred miles east
of the "Mosquito Shore" of Honduras, and some four hun-
dred miles southwest of the island of Jamaica; it was called
Old Providence, to distinguish it from New Providence in
the Bahama Islands. This island was already in the posses-
sion of the Spaniards, who had fortified it; but in the year
above named, Mansveld attacked it with a mixed force of
French and English buccaneers, captured the island with the
Spanish soldiers, and established there a garrison of his own
men. In order to lend an air of legitimacy to his operations,
Mansveld attempted to secure the sanction and aid of the
English Governor of Jamaica; this, however, he was unable
to get, — not at all on account of the character of his per-
formance, but apparently because of the jealousy of the
governor. While attempting to secure aid elsewhere, Mans-
veld died, and the command came to his lieutenant, the
notorious Henry Morgan, a Welshman.
In the mean time, while the affairs of the buccaneers were
yet in uncertainty, the Spaniards, in the summer of 1665,
as we learn from Spanish authorities, recaptured the island,
taking the garrison of buccaneers prisoners. Morgan, how-
ever, never lost sight of his predecessor's design, and after
some time spent in recruiting his force of adventurers, and
in committing depredations upon the Spaniards, he appears
to have regained possession of Old Providence at a date
which is not accurately known, the accounts being very
PATERSON IN THE BAHAMAS
211
vague and conflicting, but which is supposed to have been
in 1666 or 1667.1
Bannister has apparently confounded this island of Santa
Catalina, or Providence, with New Providence in the Baha-
mas, for he says (page 45 of his work): "In a contemporary
tract, written by James Hodges, who was then employed by
the English minister to attack the Scottish Company, it is
asserted that Paterson joined in the settlement of New Provi-
dence in the Bahamas,2 a highly probable fact."
Now as for this latter island, its history, in brief, is this :
it was first settled in 1629 by the English, and was held by
them till 1611, when they were expelled by the Spaniards.
The latter, however, did not attempt to establish themselves
upon this island, and it remained unoccupied till the year
1667, when it was again taken possession of by the English,
— at which date William Paterson was only ten or twelve
years old, if the statement in the will is correct; so that it
would not at all be "a highly probable fact" that he was
"one of those who settled the isle of Providence a second
time," but, on the contrary, highly improbable.
The reference by Hodges, however, to Paterson's presence
at the island of Providence is so distinctly in the nature of a
slur, and derives its point so directly from his alleged connec-
tion with the buccaneers, that one can scarcely come to the
conclusion that any other meaning was intended by that
1 The island was retaken by Morgan in all probability before the treaty of
13-23 May, 1667, concluded between Great Britain and Spain at Madrid, by
which the occupation of several disputed territories by the respective powers was
ratified and confirmed to each. It is thought by the writer to be this sort of
legalization of possession and its attendant results which are referred to by
Hodges in the extract given in the text, when he speaks of a governor being
imposed on the so-called " settlers " of the island of Providence. This treaty of
1667, though it was immediately and grossly violated by the buccaneers, was pre-
served by the terms of the more elaborate and better-known treaty of peace and
amity, oblivion of injuries, etc., negotiated between the two countries by Lord
Godolphin in the year 1670 : " Que de ninguna manera se entiendan abolidos
6 derogados por los presentes articulos y convenciones el tratado de paz 6 amistad
ajustado en Madrid el dia if de Mayo," etc.
2 This is merely Bannister's inference. The pamphlet does not say so at all,
as will be seen from the quotation above.
212 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
writer than that Paterson was present at the first or second
capture of Santa Catalina. The importance of Hodges '
statement, however, lies not in its proving or tending to
prove that Paterson actually was at either Providence or
New Providence in the years 1664 to 1667, but that his
contemporaries generally must have ascribed to him an age
sufficiently great to have relieved this statement from the
charge of absurdity to which it would have been open, had
Paterson been born in the year 1658 or in 1655; in other
words, that he was generally considered at the time of
Hodges' pamphlet, in 1699, to be a man of fifty years of age
and over, rather than of about forty.
III. It has been already stated that writers are agreed
that William Paterson's departure from Scotland was in
some manner owing to the persecutions by the Church of
England party against the Scottish Presbyterians. These
persecutions had their origin in what is known in English
Church history as the "Act of Uniformity," of October,
1662, under which the Scottish clergymen were ordered to
conform to the rites of the Church of England. Refusing to
do so, most of them were driven from their pulpits ; and as
they persisted in preaching at what were known as conven-
ticles, or gatherings in private houses, or in the woods and
fields, a severe act against this practice was passed in 1664 ;
and this proving ineffectual, in 1665 a force of troops was
sent into the west of Scotland to put down the refractory
clergy and their supporters; and during the period from
1665 to 1667, the troops being then commanded by Sir James
Turner and the notorious "Tom Dalziel," great cruelties
were inflicted upon the unfortunate Presbyterians, and multi-
tudes of them were compelled to fly from the country. The
persecutions by the English Church party were spasmodic in
their nature. A lull followed Dalziel's bloody performances,
and then, in 1669 and 1670, persecution again broke out,
and many more of the Scots fled from their country. It is
evident, however, that if the dates of Paterson's birth, as
PATERSON'S PRESENCE IN NEW YORK 213
given by Bannister and by Pagan, — 1655 or 1658, — are,
either of them, correct, it could have been neither of these
persecutions that drove William Paterson out of Scotland.1
A long period of inaction now followed, while the English
court was coquetting with the dissenters, in order to gain
their political support; and it was not until 1679-80, the
period of the murder of Archbishop Sharpe and of the
battle of Bothwell Brigg, that the non-conformists again
felt the heavy hand of the government, at which time the
allusions referred to above, as to Paterson's subsequently
taking part in the settlement of the island of Providence,
etc., would have lost all meaning.
If William Paterson, the financier and statesman of Great
Britain, was born in the year 1655, or in 1658, we know
nothing definite, and are not likely to ever know anything
of his early history, because all the theories which we can
reasonably form seem to be met by apparently irreconcilable
facts. If, on the contrary, Paterson was a man at least ten
years older, we have certainly a succession of events which
are not only consistent with the historical data which we
have respecting him, but are also consistent with his having
been a resident of New York and of Albany in the years
1668-69. In this aspect of the case one might readily form
a theory that William Paterson, — then a young man of
eighteen or nineteen, — driven from his home in Scotland by
the Conventicle Act of 1664, had found his way to the West
Indies, and had placed himself under Morgan's command, in
time to take part in the capture of the island of Providence
in about the year 1666; and that after the treaty of 1667,
either tiring of his connection with his rough associates, or
the strong moral sense with which he was undoubtedly
endowed, rebelling against their performances, he had
quitted his companions and made his way to New York in
the next year. We have even the fact that in 1668, a
piratical or quasi-piratical vessel actually arrived at New
1 The so-called Conventicle Act and its penalties only applied to persons over
sixteen years of age.
2U NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
York from the West Indies, and was the subject of certain
proceedings there in the Court of Admiralty. This was the
so-called privateer "Cedar." She seems to have been a
Spanish vessel which had recently been captured with a
cargo of Campeachy wood, in the West Indies, by Captain
Thomas Salter of Port Royal in the island of Jamaica, who
is described as "commander of a private man-of-war." Salter
placed a crew upon the vessel, under the command of Wil-
liam Smith as master, with orders to carry her to Jamaica;
but Captain Smith determined to make a voyage on his own
account, and accordingly sailed for New York. Whom the
vessel brought with her we do not know, as the proceedings
only allude incidentally to a few of the crew ; but it is cer-
tain that the first information we have of William Paterson
in New York was very soon after the arrival of this vessel.
If, as a matter of conjecture (for there is certainly no proof),
any portion of the spoils of the Spaniards in the West Indies
— or possibly of Morgan's sack of the town of Porto Bello,
in 1668 — actually went into the purchase of Paterson's
various parcels of real estate in New York, he was fully
confirmed in its possession, and released from any possible
apprehensions of the criminal law, by Lord Godolphin's
"Treaty of Oblivion" with Spain, which was promulgated
in July, 1669, 1 though it was not formally ratified by the
British and Spanish governments till the following }^ear. It
will be noticed that this date coincides closely with Pater-
son's departure from New York and his presumed return to
Europe.
i See Bridges, " Annals of Jamaica," page 266. This famous treaty contains
the following provisions (Article VII.) : "Que todas las ofensas, perdidas, danos
e injurias que las naciones Espanola e inglesa huvieron padecido reciprocamente
en la America en qualesquiera tiempos passados, por qualquier causa d pretexto
por una 6 otra de las partes, se pongan en olvido, y se borren enteramente de la
memoria, como si nunca huviessen succedido."
" That all offences, losses, depredations, and wrongs which the Spanish and
English nations shall have reciprocally suffered in America, in whatever times
past, upon whatever cause or pretext, upon either side, shall be buried in oblivion
and entirely banished from memory, as if they had never happened."
SIGNATURES OF PATERSON
215
There is another matter of some importance which remains
to be considered. In the Colonial Records at Albany we
possess two of the original signatures of William Paterson of
New York. One of these is affixed to the complaint made
by him against Captain Baker, already alluded to; the other,
to a bond given by Paterson to prosecute that officer. Upon
comparing these signatures with the known signatures of
William Paterson, the Scottish statesman, much apparent
dissimilarity appears on a casual view. Examining them,
however, more carefully, we find that the apparent difference
is chiefly owing to a series of complicated and clumsy flour-
ishes at the beginning and at the end of the signatures of
1669. Leaving these out of view, and remembering that —
upon the theory that the signatures were made by the same
individual — we are comparing the handwriting of a very
young man, of not much school education, and fresh from a
life of hardship and adventure, with that made forty or fifty
years later by the fluent writer and pamphleteer, deeply
immersed in important political and business enterprises, —
and there certainly seems to be a very striking, indeed,
almost startling resemblance between the signatures. The
very peculiar form of the capital letter P will be noticed at
once. A comparison of the signatures is as follows: —
1. Signature of William Paterson to the complaint against
Captain Baker, August 14, 1669. 1
1 From N. Y. Colonial MSS. Vol. 22, page 78.
216 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
2. Same from bond or recognizance of Paterson to prose-
cute Captain Baker for burglary, etc., August 19, 1669. 1
3. From an original letter of 1699 in the Advocates
Library, Edinburgh. (Taken from Bannister's Work.)
4. From an original letter in the British State Paper
Office, of December 18, 1718. (From Bannister's Work.)
As to the body of the documents in the Colonial Records
which have just been alluded to, they are evidently drawn
up by another hand, doubtless either by an attorney or by
the court clerk ; but the language of the complaint is, in all
probability, that of the complainant himself. Now those
familiar with the writings of the financier and statesman will
remember that he is exceedingly prone to allude frequently,
in a reverent manner, to the interpositions of Divine Provi-
dence in the affairs of men. His account of the Darien
expedition, especially, contains many such allusions, and
one can hardly peruse them without recurring at once to the
words of the complaint at Albany: "he came in with his
sword drawn and pointed at this complainant, with intent to
l From N. Y. Col. MSS., Vol. 22, page 89.
MYSTERY OF PATERSON'S LIFE
217
have killed him, which he likewise would have done, in case
it was not hindered by the Providence of God."
In studying the life of William Paterson, as presented to
us by his biographers, one receives the impression that he
is considering the career of a man of strong and vigorous
character, of great natural abilities, of wide experience of
men and of affairs, it is true ; but still of one who has been
exalted by circumstances into a position of great public
prominence,1 beyond what he could have anticipated, or
perhaps even have hoped for. Some unknown sentiment,
however, possibly pride, or possibly a sense of moral pro-
priety, seems to be operating constantly upon him, inducing
him to throw himself into the background, as it were, and to
cover his own individuality with an air of mystery and of
obscurity, especially in so far as his early life was concerned.
Deeply interested in, and intimately acquainted with, the
trade of the West Indies, as he was, and voluminous writer
as he was upon that subject, — projector of the Darien colony,
in which expedition he took a personal part and of which he
has given a long account, — he affords us nowhere any definite
information as to how he acquired his knowledge relating to
those parts of the globe, or as to his personal experiences
there, except the one allusion which seems, as it were, to
escape from him inadvertently, when speaking of his en-
countering in the West Indies, upon the Darien expedition
1 "The great projector," says Macaulay, in speaking of the Darien scheme,
" was the idol of the whole nation. Men spoke to him with more profound
respect than to the Lord High Commissioner. His antechamber was crowded
witli solicitors desirous to catch some drops of that golden shower of which he
was supposed to be the dispenser. To be seen walking with him in the High
Street, to be honored by him with a private interview of a quarter of an hour,
were enviable distinctions." And again : "His countenance, his voice, his ges-
tures, indicated boundless self-importance. When he appeared in public he
looked — such is the language of one who probably had often seen him — like
Atlas, conscious that a world was on his shoulders. But the airs which he gave
himself only heightened the respect and admiration which he inspired. His
demeanor was regarded as a model. Scotchmen, who wished to be thought wise,
looked as like Paterson as they could."
218 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
iu 1698, a certain Captain Richard Moon, he says: "This
man I had known in Jamaica many years before."1
Was William Paterson's strange self-concealment due to
the unhappy experiences of his younger years in the West
Indies and in New York, which (after the fashion of Lord
Godolphin with the exploits of the English freebooters) he
wished to be " buried in oblivion, and entirely banished from
memory " ? We can only answer in the favorite words of the
Jewish historian, Josephus, when he encounters a particu-
larly knotty question of history or of human conduct: "Now
as to these matters let every one determine as he pleases."
To the eastward of the house and land of Charles Bridges
(formerly that of Thomas Willet) was, at the time of our
survey, a narrow lane, leading from the High Street down to
the East River shore. This lane, which occupied the site of
the present building, No. 52 Stone Street, and which has
been previously alluded to,2 is shown upon "The Duke's
Plan," of 1661, but appears to have been closed within the
next two or three years,3 as it is not shown upon the Nicoll
map of about 1666; it is, however, alluded to in a deed of
1672, as "a certain narrow lane," and may have been still
used, in part, as a private lane at the latter date. This lane
separated the original grant of Thomas Willet from that of
his English neighbor, Richard Smith.
Richard Smith, a native of Gloucestershire, in England,
was one of the pioneers of the New England settlements.
1 Paterson arrived at New York in August, 1699, on his return from the
Darien Expedition. He was at this time, as he tells us, so sick that his life was
despaired of. The order permitting him to bring his baggage ashore is to be
found in the Council Minutes ; it bears date Aug. 23, 1699.
2 See ante, page 172.
8 On the the 28th of March, 1658, Solomon La Chair, who at that time had
a lot upon which he kept a small tavern, which lot immediately adjoined the
lane referred to above, on the west, requested of the burgomasters to know
" whether the street lying beside his lot to the left of Carel van Brugge, and
bought from him, shall be given for a lot, or if a street shall remain." To this
request, the magistrates caused a reply to be made, that " the street remains
provisionally for the use of the city till further order."
RICHARD SMITH
219
He came at an early day to Plymouth Colony, and was one
of the principal men among those who, pushing out through
the sandy forests westwards, a score of miles or more,
founded the old town of Taunton, where the dark waters of
the Taunton River flowed sluggishly through overhanging
woods and bushes. Smith appears to have been a man of
some independence in his views upon church dogmas, — like
Roger Williams, with whom he was intimately connected;
and his intolerant associates in the Taunton settlement
annoying him on this account, he removed still further to
the west, and, having purchased a tract of land from the
Indians, on the west side of Narragansett Bay, he erected a
trading house, about 1638, in what is now North Kingston,
in the State of Rhode Island, — his nearest English neighbors
for several years being at Warwick, nearly ten miles up the
bay.
It was probably at Taunton that Richard Smith became
acquainted with the Reverend Francis Doughty, a dissenting
English clergyman, who had come over to the Plymouth
Colony, hoping to enjoy liberty of conscience there, but who
was harassed and forced to take refuge beyond the Narragan-
sett Bay, much as Richard Smith had been. These men,
with a few others, resolved to resort to New Amsterdam in
search of a settlement; and there, on the 28th of March,
16-1:2, Francis Doughty obtained, for the benefit of himself
and of his associates, from Director-General Kieft, a patent
for more than thirteen thousand acres, forming the larger
portion of the subsequent town of Newtown, upon Long
Island, in the present Borough of Queens, New York City.
Richard Smith seems to have taken part in the settlement
which was immediately commenced near the Mespat Kill
(now Newtown Creek), and it seems quite probable that
"Smith's Island," a small island in the Newtown Creek,
upon which, some ten or twelve years later, it was proposed
to establish a village to be called Arnhem, received its
name from this man.
In 1643, after the breaking out of the Indian war, the
220 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
settlement along the Mespat Kill was destroyed by the
natives ; and Richard Smith, in order to attend to his inter-
ests here, probably found it necessary to establish a residence
in New Amsterdam, which he did by acquiring, in 1645, the
plot upon Hoogh Straet which we are now considering, and
by building a house for himself about upon the site of the
present warehouse, No. 56 Stone Street. The building
would appear to have been of the usual English cottage
type, — a low double house, broad side to the street, — for,
in 1651, we are informed, in an instrument affecting the
property, that the east end of the structure was then occu-
pied by one Randel Hewit.
Smith himself, in all probability, only made occasional use
of this house, either for a residence or for storehouse pur-
poses. He still retained his trading house on Narragansett
Bay, and as early as 1651 he was the master of a coasting
vessel, — a bark called the " Welcome," with which he made
occasional voyages to the Dutch settlements on the South or
Delaware River.1 His New Amsterdam possessions appear
to have been, much of the time, under the care of his son,
Richard Smith, junior, — who afterwards became prominent
as the patentee of most of the territory now known as Smith-
town, in Suffolk County on Long Island, bearing there the
appellation of Richard Smith, senior, to distinguish him from
his son Richard, grandson of the original colonist.
Richard Smith seems to have been somewhat unfortunate
with his property in New Amsterdam. As early as 1651,
1 The nature of a part of Smith's trading operations appears in a suit brought
by him against Cornelis Melyn of Staten Island, in 1660. It seems that about
the year 1655, Melyn was owing Smith something like nine pounds sterling;
and the latter agreed to take, in satisfaction for his debt, " two ankers of strong
waters," which were to be delivered to him at Melyn's house upon Staten Island.
Smith, however, delayed removing his property until the Indian War of 1655
broke out, in which the Indians destroyed Melyn's house and made short work
of Richard Smith's " strong waters." Subsequently, during Melyn's absence in
the Netherlands, Smith came with several Englishmen, and, as was claimed by
Melyn, terrified the wife of the latter into signing a promissory note as agent of
her husband, for the amount of the original debt. The matter appears to have
been compromised between the parties.
RICHARD SMITH'S HOUSE 221
he had sold the house to one Gillis Pietersen, but appears to
have soon had it back upon his hands, probably by virtue of
a mortgage which he held. During the long absences of
himself and of his son, the place appears to have become
neglected. The easternmost lot of the property having been
sold within a year or so after the time of our survey, to the
glassmaker, Evert Duyckingh, who had built upon it, we
find, in 1659, the burgomasters of the town, who erroneously
supposed that Duyckingh owned the whole parcel, serving a
notice upon him to improve the same ; in answer to this he
appears before the magistrates, and disclaims the ownership
of the property, but says that he is authorized by the owner
to sell it, and that " Mr. Smit himself has valued it at five
hundred beavers." By 1662, Smith had succeeded in clos-
ing out his interests in New Amsterdam, his house and most
of the plot of land having been sold to one Jan Hendricksen
Stilman, a well-known character of the town, to whom the
nickname of Koopal, or "Buy Everything" had been given
by his neighbors; the house, at this time, is somewhat
dubiously described as "a superstructure."
This transaction apparently terminated the connection of
Richard Smith with the town of New Amsterdam. He lived
for a number of years afterwards, and is spoken of in terms
of warm esteem by his friend, the famous Roger Williams.
"Mr. Richard Smith," says the latter, writing in 1679, "for
his conscience to God, left fair possessions in Glostershire,
and adventured, with his relations and estates to N. Eng-
land, and was a most acceptable inhabitant and prime leading
man in Taunton, in Plymouth Colony. For his conscience
sake, many differences arising, he left Taunton and came to
the Nahiggonsik country, where by God's Mercy, and the
favor of the Nahiggonsik sachems, he broke the ice at his
great charge and hazard, and put up in the thickest of the
barbarians, the first English house amongst them. . . . He
kept possession, coming and going, himself, children, and
servants, and he had quiet possession of his housing, lands,
and meadow ; and there, in his own house, with much seren-
222 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
ity of soul and comfort, he yielded up his spirit to God, the
Father of Spirits, in peace."
A short distance east of Richard Smith's plot of ground
upon the East River, the land between the road and the river
shore was intersected by the gully or ravine, known as
"Burger's Path." A small parcel of ground intervened,
however, containing about fifty English feet front upon the
road, or Hoogh Straet, and extending some eighty feet or
thereabouts to the crumbling bank above the beach. Upon
this ground, just about at the period of our survey, Abraham
Martensen Clock and Tryntje, his huysvrouw, had built for
themselves a small house. This stood apparently near the
bank of the river, and about at the southwestern corner of the
site of the modern building now known as the Old Cotton
Exchange. Abraham Clock received his ground-brief for
this parcel of land in the year 1655, it being described as a
"lot on the east side of the lot of Richard Smith, and on the
west side of the road which Burger Joris uses to go to the
river side." The premises seem to have contained a well of
some repute, the site of which is clearly marked in the con-
veyances of this property, and which may, indeed, still exist
under the Old Cotton Exchange which at the present day
covers Abraham Clock's modest holding, — house-site, gar-
den, and all. This well was at the right of the entrance to
the modern building, upon Hanover Square, and about eigh-
teen feet back from the street line.
Of Abraham Clock, but little is known; he was living
here as late as 1664, but died within a few years after that
date. One of the trials of his humble life at this spot was
that his plot of ground was subject to the encroachments of
the waves at high tides. Later, in 1672, when his widow,
Tryntje, had been ordered to fill out the street, or Waal, in
front of her premises, and also the hollow way upon the east,
she declared herself unable to have the work done ; and the
magistrates of the city decided to render her special aid, " as
she has so much to do."
CHAPTER XVII
HANOVER SQUARE AND BURGER'S PATH. — BURGER JORIS-
SEN, THE SMITH. — THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. — HEN-
DRICK JANSEN, THE TAILOR, AND HIS OPINION OF
DIRECTOR KIEFT. — SMITH STREET
" That f rae November till October,
Ae market-day thon was nae sober ;
That ilka melder wi* the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ;
That ev'ry naig was ea'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on."
Burns : " Tarn o' Shanter."
WE are at Hanover Square, — not a very stately locality,
perhaps; but a place replete with historical associa-
tions,— of Burger Jorissen, rough and intemperate at times,
but a vigorous pioneer of the new colony ; of Hendrick Jansen,
the virulent enemy of Director Kieft; of Govert Loocker-
mans, the shipping merchant, a pioneer of the commerce of
New Amsterdam, as enterprising in his way upon the sea as
was Burger Jorissen upon the land. Half of the political
history of the colony, during the reign of William III., centres
about this spot, with its memories of Nicholas Bayard, of the
judicially murdered Leisler and Milborne, and of the patient
and long-suffering Elsie Leisler and her widowed daughter
Mary Milborne. The tortuous policy of King William's
government with the piratical adventurers, too, should not be
forgotten ; and there are not wanting associations here to call
up the names of the Earl of Bellomont and of Captain
William Kidd. The Square might well have received the
name of Orange, or of Nassau, as representative of King Wil-
liam's times, but it was named at a somewhat later date,
224 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
when the elector of Hanover came to the throne. The Scotch
Jacobites, at this time, with their bitter hatred of what they
considered as the usurpation of a petty German prince, were
singing :
" Wha the deil hae we gotten now for a king,
But a wee, wee German lairdie !
And when we gaed to bring him hame,
He was delving in his kail-yardie ;
Sheughing kail and laying leeks,
Wi'out the hose and but the breeks ;
And up his beggar duds he cleeks, —
The wee, wee German lairdie."
The Hanoverian party was in control, however, and the
little triangular patch of ground in New York received the
name of Hanover Square, in honor of King George I.
It is not, we have said, a very stately locality. The tall
buildings of the Coffee and of the Cotton Exchanges look
down upon an open space covered with smooth asphalt over
which crowds stream in all directions, — mainly to and from
the station of the elevated railway which mars its southern
side ; no sprig of green vegetation is in sight, and warehouses
along the south side of Pearl Street cut off all view of the river.
A very different scene presented itself in the seventeenth
century, however. Then, from the narrow roadway along the
north side of the " square," all the intervening ground, to the
river's edge beyond the present Pearl Street, was a grassy
bank shaded by native forest trees, under which strollers
from the town sometimes whiled the time away, or visiting
Indians camped. Immediately in front of the spot where now
stands the building known as the Old Cotton Exchange, a
gully or shallow ravine led down to the river beach ; this had
been deepened, for the purpose of making a passage or cart-
way to the shore, by Burger Jorissen; insomuch that in
1646 the council made an order that he " must rail or fence
the road which is made before his door, so that no persons
may fall in ; and that it be a good wagon road." 1 This pas-
1 The condition of this locality in 1679 is shown in the plate at page 188 of
this work.
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 225
sage way was known as u Burger's Path " for more than a
century. Nearly opposite it, upon the north side of Hoogh
Straet, just about at the little bookstore in the rear portion of
the building, now (1901) occupying the northwest corner of
William and Stone streets, stood the house built about 1614
by Hendrick Jansen, the tailor, but soon sold to Burger
Jorissen. Immediately east of this, at the present corner of
the last-mentioned streets, but infringing somewhat upon
Stone Street (which has been straightened), was the black-
smith's shop of Jorissen. William Street did not as yet exist,
and its ground, with about half of the New Cotton Exchange
upon the east of it, formed originally Burger Jorissen's gar-
den, and possibly a small orchard, — for his plot contained
about three-quarters of an acre of land. About a hundred
and twenty-five feet farther down the road stood the comfort-
able residence of Govert Loockermans, in a large enclosure of
ground sloping down to a small pond, and with green fields
behind it; a small intermediate house stood along the road
which seems to have been at an earlier date the dwelling-
house of Dirck Cornelissen, and to have passed into the posses-
sion of Loockermans upon his marriage to Dirck Cornelissen's
widow. A short distance, still farther, at a small turn in the
road, stood two or three more houses, one of which was the
old tavern of Sergeant Daniel Litscho, and these were the last
buildings towards the city gate at the present Wall Street.
Burger Jorissen was, in all probability, a refugee of the
Thirty Years' War. That terrible struggle, which desolated
the Germanic countries from 1618 to 1648, undoubtedly
played a part which has never been fully appreciated, in the
colonization of New Netherland. It was a conflict which
carried with it carnage and devastation and misery enough to
satisfy fully the appetite for military " glory " of the most
ferocious, the most ignorant, or the most foolhardy. Not the
lines of marches alone, but whole provinces were ravaged
indiscriminately by bands of marauders of both the contend-
ing parties. " No act of cruelty," say the deputies, from
Pomerania, to the emperor, "could be mentioned, or even
15
226 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
thought of, that these savages had not exercised ; and many
hundreds of the wretched inhabitants, in order to prevent
these horrible acts from being inflicted upon themselves, and
to escape from dying through starvation, had committed
suicide." The original causes of the war were soon lost sight
of ; and no man knew exactly what he was fighting for.
Scores of leaders sprang up, made names for themselves, per-
ished by the sword, and were forgotten. There came eventu-
ally a time when half of the soldiers in the armies had never
lived in anything but a state of warfare, and when the military
occupation wTas the only one that many men could turn to for
their support. The most fortunate of the inhabitants were
those who could escape from their country, and although this
was not an easy matter, hosts of them did make their escape,
mostly into the Netherlands, whence many sought their for-
tunes in the Dutch establishments in Asia and in America.
Burger Jorissen's home — the town of Hirschberg in Sile-
sia — was in one of those quiet nooks of Germany which we
are least likely to associate with war and bloodshed. Sur-
rounded by gardens and by meadows and pastures, whitened
here and there by the linen bleacheries for which it was
famed, the town lay upon a mountain stream called the Bober
River, and at the roots of the Riesen Gebirge, the Giants'
Mountains of Bohemia, about which Geibel has sung, — of
the sunshine pouring through the fir-trees, the deer rustling
in the thickets, the streamlets tumbling over mossy rocks :
" Wie lieblich fliesst durch griine Tannen
Auf Bbhmens Hoh'n der Sonne Strahl !
Durch's Dickicht rauscht das Reh von dannen,
Durch Felsen blinkt der Quell ins Thai,
Und fern zu blauen Bergeswarten
Verliert sich traumend Aug' und Sinn."
The young blacksmith, Jorissen, — for that was his trade, —
had attained the age of twenty years, when, in 1632, the tide
of war swept over Silesia, it having been overrun in that year
by the Swedes and Saxons, after the great victory of Gustavus
BURGER JORISSEN
227
Adolphus at Leipzic. As most of the inhabitants of this
part of Silesia were Lutherans, however, they probably suf-
fered no great inconvenience at this time, but in the following
year, after the death of Gustavus Adolphus at Lutzen, the
Swedes were driven out by a division of Wallenstein's army,
and the Silesians had little favor to expect from the enraged
Roman Catholic party who now had the ascendancy. It is
not at all improbable that it was at this period that Burger
Jorissen quitted his native country. If so, nothing would
have been more natural at this time than that he should have
first taken refuge in Sweden, and this may account for the
fact that as soon as he subsequently became settled in New
Netherland, he married, in 1639, a young Swedish woman,
Engeltie Mans.
However this may be, Burger Jorissen found his way to
New Netherland in 1637, in which year he came to Rensse-
laerswyck, now Albany. He did not remain there long, how-
ever, for in 1639, the year of his marriage, he was at New
Amsterdam, at which time he was so well thought of by
Director-General Kieft that he granted to the young smith,
for four years, " the use of an anvil and bellows, with half of
the smith's house." It has been already stated1 that, some-
where about 1641, Burger Jorissen built the house upon
Hoogh S tract, which three years afterwards he sold to Cor-
nells Melyn, and which at the time of our survey was in the
possession of the poet, Jacob Steendam. Burger Jorissen
was evidently a thrifty man, and was soon in a position to en-
gage in other pursuits than those of his handicraft. At an
early date, he was the owner of a sloop with which he occa-
sionally made a trading voyage up the Hudson River ; in the
capacity of a trader, however, his relations with the colonial
authorities were not always harmonious, for in the fall of
1643, the Council placed him in an embarrassing position by
forbidding him either to depart or to come ashore from his
vessel, " till he has rendered a correct account and paid the
duties." It may have been the possession of this vessel, with
1 See ante, pages 104, 128.
228 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
its facilities for easy transportation, that induced Jorissen,
before 1642, to begin the clearing of a plantation for himself,
in a remote part of what was afterwards the town of Newtown
upon Long Island, but which was at this time, with the excep-
tion of two or three widely scattered plantations, an unbroken
wilderness.
Nearly a mile up the Mespat Kill of the Dutch, — the
present Newtown Creek, — there comes in from the north
through the salt meadows a tributary creek of considerable
size, known to the Indians as Canapaukah, and this in earlier
days was navigable for vessels of light draft for about a mile
towards its head, and to a spot where it approached very near
the upland. This was the place, in an amphitheatre of low
hills, or rather knolls, looking towards the south, that Burger
Jorissen selected for his plantation. In 1643, he received a
grant of the land, some fifty-eight or sixty acres, from the Dutch
government. The locality was known, until recent years, by
the name of " The Dutch Kills ; " and the site of Burger Joris-
sen's house is occupied, there is little room to doubt, by an
ancient farmhouse of the eighteenth century, which may be
seen upon the left-hand side, or north, of the Long Island
railway, a half-mile or so beyond the Queens County Court
House at Long Island City. The small morass below it is the
remains of the mill-pond established here some years later by
Burger Jorissen. In addition to this plantation, Jorissen
seems to have made use for a time — no doubt by the per-
mission of the Director and Council — of the island known
afterwards as Luyster's Island, lying close to the Long Island
shore, beyond Hell Gate, and a short distance west of the
resort now known as North Beach. This island, as being a
place of security, appears to have been used by him for the
purpose of herding swine upon it, they being easily conveyed
to and from it by his vessel, and being there comparatively
free from danger of the attacks of wolves.
Burger Jorissen does not appear to have originally intended
his Long Island bouwery for his own residence. It was leased
out, as early as 1642, and when he sold his house upon Hoogh
JANSEN AND DIRECTOR KIEFT
229
Straet to Cornelis Melyn, in 1644, he immediately took posses-
sion of another residence upon the same street, the house near
the present Hanover Square, of which we have spoken above,
and winch he purchased in the last-mentioned year from Hen-
drick Jansen, the tailor ; this latter personage — characterized
by a singularly virulent animosity against Director-General
Kieft, which he displayed all through that officer's administra-
tion, and which nothing could restrain — deserves some par-
ticular mention. As early as 1639, Hendrick Jansen is found
occupying a small parcel of land at the southwest angle of
the river road and Maagde Paetje, or the modern Pearl Street
and Maiden Lane, he being one of the very first settlers along
the East River shore. Selling this property in the latter part
of 1641, he appears to have soon acquired the land and built
the house near the present Hanover Square which he after-
wards sold to Burger Jorissen, though he did not get his for-
mal deed for it until 1644, — very possibly on account of his
difficulties with Director Kieft. Jansen's animosity to the
Director-General, from whatever cause it originated, began
early. On the 27th of May, 1638, within a month or two of
the beginning of Kieft's administration, Jansen was prosecuted
by the fiscal for slander: upon this occasion, we find that
Hendrick displayed a sagacity which cannot fail to excite our
admiration, for his defence was that he uttered the slander
when asleep. He had to do, however, with an adversary who
was little less astute than himself, and at the instance of the
fiscal, the Council made an order " that the defendant produce
proper affidavit that he was asleep w^hen the slander was ex-
pressed." This proceeding, with its distinct flavor of modern
comic opera, does not appear to have resulted in anything very
serious, but in 1642, at a gathering at Burger Jorissen's house,
at which Jansen was present, " very drunk," as the witnesses
say, he was much more violent in his language, complaining
of Kieft as being hostile to him, and refusing him any credit.
"If I could cringe and fawn like Frenchmen and English-
men," he said, " I too could get credit. In short, an effort is
being made to crush the Netherlander, and foreigners are en-
230 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
couraged," then, snapping his fingers, " I don't care a fig for
it! What does the villain mean? " Then followed, according
to the witnesses, a highly uncomplimentary and also unprint-
able reflection upon the Director- General. This affair found
its way to the ears of Kieft and the Council, and Hendrick
Jansen was promptly ordered to be put in irons ; he was kept
in imprisonment for a month, and was then sentenced to ban-
ishment, but for some reason this was not carried out. Jan-
sen was still in the country at the time of the Indian massacre
in the beginning of the next year ; and at a period when all
tongues were employed in denouncing Kieft, we may be sure
that Hendrick Jansen's was not silent. In June, 1643, he
was ordered by the Council to " get ready to depart on the
' Prince Maurice,' which lies ready to sail," but he found means
of evading this command. On the 29th of September, 1644,
he was again before the Council, and was sentenced to a fine
of 500 guilders for slandering the Director-General, for which
amount his son-in-law, Gillis Pietersen, gave his promissory
note.1 It was perhaps in preparation for this outcome that thir-
teen days before, or on the 16th of September, 1644, Jansen
had transferred to Burger Jorissen his " house, garden, and
brew-house " for the sum of 1900 guilders, or about $720 of the
present currency; and these premises became the abode of
Jorissen during the remainder of his residence in New Amster-
dam. As for Hendrick Jansen, he remained in the colony till
the summer of 1647, when he prepared to return with Kieft
to the Netherlands, designing, perhaps (as there is little doubt
that several others of Kieft's enemies did), to call the ex-
director to account in the Fatherland for his arbitrary pro-
ceedings. Jansen seems to have been well thought of by his
neighbors, and carried with him several letters of procuration
to attend to various business for them in the Netherlands.
He sailed in the " Princess," and is supposed to have been one
of those who perished in the wreck of that ill-fated vessel.
Burger's " smithy," which he soon built near his new house
1 This may possibly have been a compromise of the sentence of two years
before, but it has the appearance of having been a new prosecution.
BURGER'S "SMITHY " AND BREW-HOUSE 231
upon Hoogh Straet, became a well-known point, as Burger
himself came to be a well-marked character in the town. The
circumstances of his life had. contributed to give him a some-
what rough exterior, but he seems to have been good-hearted
and generally liked. The small " brew-house " which he had
received from Hendrick Jansen, and the acquaintance with
the brewer's processes, which he as well as many other men of
his day possessed, was not an unmixed good to him. In 1646,
he was prosecuted and fined for selling beer without paying
the excise tax. He denied the general charge, but admitted
that three half-barrels were drunk in his house " with some
company." Somewhat sore over this affair, Burger threatened
the fiscal, or prosecuting officer, that he would " cut a slice "
out of that official's body, before he got away from the country.
The aggrieved fiscal immediately instituted a prosecution of
his own against Burger for these injurious words, whereupon
the latter appeared before the Council and begged pardon of
the officer. The fiscal was obdurate, however, and insisted
that Burger should be fined : the matter was referred to cer-
tain arbitrators, who reported to the Council that they had
met, but that Burger " made game of them." The Council
itself now took the affair in hand and not only fined Burger
60 guilders, but upon his addressing that body in a manner
which it considered derogatory to its dignity, it ordered him
"to remain four and twenty hours in chains."
Nearly ten years later, Burger retained some of his old
characteristics, for in 1655 he was prosecuted for assaulting,
in his own house, when drunk, Joshua Atwater of Stratford,
Connecticut, in a dispute about an account ; this proceeding
also Burger regarded as highly unjust to himself, since his
witnesses showed that he had paid the difference in dispute,
confessed his fault, " and separated with a drink in friendship
and harmony."
Burger Jorissen continued his active life at New Amster-
dam and its vicinity for many years. Before 1654, he had
thrown a dam across the Canapaukah Creek near his bouwery
upon Long Island, and established a mill there, which was
232 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
famous long after his day under the appellation of " Burger's
Mill." This mill was in existence less than a century ago,
and the mill-dam remained till about 1861, when it is said to
have been demolished by the building of the Long Island
railway over its site. Jorissen became a noted character in
the locality of his bouwery ; the creek up which his boat used
to sail to the foot of the mill-dam is still occasionally known
as "Burger's Kill;" and a small run of water which he
widened and deepened through the swampy land lying east
of the mill-pond, to increase the water supply for his mill,
was long known as " Burger's Sluice." This until within a
comparatively few years presented itself as a veritable artist's
study, with its banks lined with alders and overarched by
swamp maples and white woods, with their swinging vines of
the wild grape. It is now merely a bare and half dry ditch.
About the year 1654, the opening of several additional
streets in New Amsterdam was planned, one of which, it was
pretty well decided, was to pass through Burger Jorissen's
garden ; he therefore determined to sell the house in which
he had now resided for about ten years, and to build a new
house for himself upon the east side of his land. The old
house, with a long narrow strip of land extending back about
to the present Beaver Street, was sold in the summer of 1655
to one Marcus Hendricksen Vogelsang, who, however, only
kept it till the next year, when it came into the possession of
Michiel Jansen, a farmer whose plantation at Gamoenepa, or
Communipaw, had recently been devastated by the Indians,
at which time, as he states in a petition to the Director and
Council, " he lost all he had acquired for seventeen years, and
was left without means whatever to support himself and six
children."1 Jansen lived here a short time, but afterwards
returned to his bouwery at Gamoenepa.
1 This Michiel Jansen, from Broeckhuysen, came over from tne Nether-
lands, in 1636. According to the railing catalogue of Secretary van Tienhoven,
he had been a " boere knecht," or farm laborer. He first went to Rensselaers-
wyck with his wife and two children. Here he prospered ; but on account of
some disagreement with the leaders of that colony, he left and came to New
Amsterdam. For a while he farmed several parcels of land upon Manhattan
SMITH'S STREET
233
By the end of 1656, the new street had been laid out: it
seems to have received its name of Smith's Street from the
blacksmith whose land it ran through ; 1 and it continued to
be known by that name until far into the next century,
when the name of King William, which had been given to an
extension of this street, was gradually applied to the whole,
which came to be thus known as William Street. About
1660, Burger Jorissen sold off in small parcels all of his land
remaining upon the west side of William Street. His later
house, the site of which is covered by the New Cotton
Exchange, was at the eastern corner of William and Stone
streets, and here he resided during the remainder of his stay
in New Amsterdam.2 He left the town, however, soon after
the surrender to the English in 1664, and took up his resi-
dence upon his Long Island bouwery, selling his house in
New Amsterdam to Thomas Lewis, in the year 1668. Dur-
ing the short remainder of his life upon Long Island, he
Island, but eventually bought the farm of Jan Evertsen Bout, on the opposite
side of the North River, paying for it 8000 guilders, or about $3200 of the pres-
ent currency. He appears to have died at his plantation in Communipaw some
time prior to the autumn of 1663.
1 This appears to be a much more satisfactory explanation of the name of the
street than that it received its designation from Jan Smedes, the glass-maker who
lived towards the termination of the Slyck Steegli near where the new street was
laid out. He had not been a man of much prominence in the town, and had
nothing in particular to do with the laying out of the street, so far as can be dis-
covered. A petition which was made to the burgomasters on the 19th of April,
1657, by " the neighbors in the Glazier Street," for " a cartway to the Strand, as
was promised them," has been taken to refer to the newly opened street, and
consequently as supporting the notion that the name was derived from Jan
Smedes. As, however, not only this individual, but also the other principal glass-
maker of the town, Evert Duyckingh, resided in the Slyck Steegh, it is much
more likely that this is the " Glazier Street " referred to, and that the petition is
either a protest against the closing of the easterly portion of the Slyck Steegh
(which was afterwards carried out), or else that it related to the passageway
into Hoogh Straet, which still exists under the name of Mill Street or Lane, and
the lane or passageway nearly opposite, which is now closed, but which then led
from Hoogh Straet down to the shore of the river.
2 In the early portion of the eighteenth century, this house became of interest
as being the residence and place of business of William Bradford, the first estab-
lished printer in New York; here, in 1725, is supposed to have been issued the
first number of the " New York Gazette," the pioneer newspaper of the city.
234 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
became a man of considerable prominence, and was one of
the patentees named in the Nicoll Patent of the town of
Newtown in 1666-67, and one of several commissioners
appointed in 1670 to lay out and regulate roads in that town.
He died in 1671 at his farm at " The Dutch Kills," leaving a
family of several adult sons. His widow, Engeltie, however,
— apparently desirous of returning to the scenes of her earlier
life, — purchased, some time before 1683, the old house of
Richard Smith, upon Hoogh Straet, of which prior mention
has been made.1 Here she resided for many years, with her
sons Hermanus and Johannes Burger, — for Burger hence-
forth became the family name : all three of them appear as
members of the Dutch church, in the list of 1686. Engeltie
appears to have been a vigorous old lady of somewhat mas-
culine disposition. She was frequently, as witness or liti-
gant, before the court at the Stadt Huys, where she was much
dreaded on account of her loquacity, the magistrates being
forced to protest against her upon their minutes, as being
addicted to "an outpouring of many words." She attained
a great age, but, as she states, in an affidavit which she made
in the year 1701 before the Mayor, that she is " aged seventy
years, or thereabouts," — which would have made her about
eight years of age at the time of her marriage to Burger
Jorissen, in 1639, — the inference may perhaps arise that her
memory in her later years was not as good as it had formerly
been.
1 See ante, pages 220, 221.
CHAPTER XVIII
GOVERT LOOCKERMANS AND HIS FAMILY. - ELSIE LE1SLER.
- THE LOO CKERMA NS' HOUSE AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.
— CAPTAIN KIDD
1 Le temps emporte sur son aile
Et le priutemps et l'hirondelle,
Et la vie et les jours perdus :
Tout s'en va coramc la fumee,
L 'esperance et la renomme'e ! "
A. DE MUSSET.
IF any person endowed with the gift of an insight into the
future had predicted to Govert Loockermans, the young
assistant of the cook on the yacht " St. Martin," upon his
arrival in New Amsterdam, in the year 1633, that he was to
become the leading merchant of his day in a town which two
centuries and a half later was to occupy the position of the
second city of the world ; that in the next generation his son
should be a magistrate and physician of note in a then flour-
ishing but as yet non-existent community, two hundred
miles away from New Amsterdam through trackless forests ;
that his step-daughter's husband should take entire possession
of the government of the New Netherland Colony, claiming
to hold the same for the King of England, which king should
at the same time be the Stadtholder of the United Nether-
lands and the head of the historic Nassau-Orange family;
that this same husband of his step-daughter, together with
her daughter's husband, should suffer the penalty of death
for treason in a prosecution principally urged by the members
of a family into which his (Loockermans) own daughter
should have married ; that the house which he should build
236 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
for his residence in New Amsterdam should after his death
be the home of a man who (whether justly or unjustly)
should suffer as the most notorious pirate of his age, but
that this same man should represent an association of which
no less a personage than the aforesaid King of England was
one of the parties, — if all this had been told to Go vert
Loockermans, he would probably have regarded it as the
ravings of delirium.
The original home of Govert Loockermans was at Turnhout,
a town about twenty-five miles northeast of Antwerp, and
not within the L^nited Provinces, but in that portion of the
Netherlands which remained under the Spanish and afterwards
under the Austrian rule. Coming to New Netherland in 1633
in a humble capacity, as already mentioned,1 he acquired the
favorable opinion of Director-General Van Twiller, who pro-
cured him a situation as clerk in the employ of the West
India Company : how long he remained in the service of the
company we do not know, but he is said to have been one
of the party sent out by Director-General Kieft, in 1640,
under Secretary Van Tienhoven, against the Raritan Indians,
— upon which occasion, says Clute, in his " Annals of Staten
Island," he distinguished himself by killing one of the natives
in cold blood.
This story, however, may be a mere invention of Loocker-
mans' enemies, for it is known that a little later he was ac-
cused of undue partiality towards the Indians, with whom,
as a fur trader, he must necessarily have had to keep on
good terms. In 1648, one Govert Aertsen, owner of a sloop
making occasional voyages to New England, made the extraor-
dinary application, to the Council at New Amsterdam, for
a formal certificate that his name was not Govert Loocker-
mans. It appeared that he had recently been with his sloop
at Rhode Island, and there some of the inhabitants became con-
vinced that he was Govert Loockermans, against whom they
were at that time highly incensed for having sold powder and
1 It is Secretary Van Tienhoven who, in his sneering way of speaking of the
principal men of New Amsterdam, calls him "a cook's mate turned trader."
GOVERT LOOCKERMANS
237
lead to the New England Indians. Despite his protestations,
Aertsen came very near being thrown into prison there, a
clamor having been made for the confiscation of the vessel. It
is this incident, in part, that leads to the conjecture that Go vert
Loockermans' patronymic was really Aertsen, or Aersen,
though (as in many other instances) the patronymic was
not generally used by him. The term " Loockerman " is so
clearly suggestive of the ship's locker that that designation
would seem to have been originally applied to him from his
early avocation, and to have been in the end accepted by him
for convenience' sake. This conjecture certainly tends to
explain (as will be afterwards mentioned) what is otherwise
a matter of considerable uncertainty ; namely, the manner
in which Loockermans acquired the plot upon which he
resided, at the present Hanover Square.
About the latter part of 1640, Go vert Loockermans re-
visited the Netherlands, where he remained some months,
and where, at Amsterdam, in the early part of the year 1041,
he married Ariaentje Janse. A short time later, accompanied
by his wife, he sailed for New Amsterdam in the ship " King
David," having under his charge, as agent for the firm of
Gillis Verbrugge and Company, a cargo of goods for New
Netherland. With him came, in all probability, his sister
Anneken, who, in the early part of 1G42, was married at New
Amsterdam to Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt, of whom
mention has already been made.1
Govert Loockermans now soon became engaged in import-
ant trading operations upon his own account. In 1642, he
bought, in conjunction with one Cornells Leendertsen, from
Isaac Allerton, the leading New England trader, for the
sum of 1100 guilders, the bark called the " Hope ; " and
from this time, for a long period, he was closely connected
in business enterprises with Allerton. The two acquired
1 See ante, page 7G. This lady, the ancestress of the American family of Van
Cortlandt, lived long in high esteem at New Amsterdam. She survived her
husband, and the poetical epitaph composed, upon her own death, by her pastor,
the Reverend Ilenricus Selyns, is still extant.
238 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
jointly, in 1643, a parcel of ground upon the east side of the
present Broadway, about two hundred and seventy-five feet
north of Beaver Street, — a large plot, of about one hundred
feet front, and extending some two hundred and fifty feet
down the hill towards the Broad Street swamp. What this
property was used or designed for, whether for warehouse
purposes or for speculation, or whether it was held to cover
some indebtedness to these associates, does not appear. It is
a curious fact that although Govert Loockermans was for
many years engaged in mercantile ventures, we nowhere
meet with any allusions to a warehouse owned by him;
this may, indeed, have been located at his residence near the
East River shore, the large size of the building rendering this
quite probable, or it is possible that he may have made use
of Allerton's large building at the present Pearl Street and
Peck Slip.
Loockermans was a bold and enterprising trader, careless
of whose corns he trod upon, — metaphorically speaking, —
in his pursuit of gain: ready, apparently, at any time to
furnish the Indians with firearms, powder, and balls, in ex-
change for their furs ; and declining to permit any inter-
ference in his business by persons of adverse interest. In
1644, he had been up the Hudson, upon a trading voyage
to the north, in the yacht, the " Good Hope," and on his
return, when passing Bear's Island, below Albany, where the
patroon Van Rensselaer had erected a small fortification which
was guarded by one Nicholas Koorn, that individual, accord-
ing to the story of several of the men of Loockermans' crew,
" cried out to Govert Loockermans, when we were passing by :
4 Lower thy colors.' * For whom should I do so ? ' retorted
Loockermans. Then Koorn replied : 4 For the staple right of
Rensselaerswyck.' Then Govert Loockermans answered, *I
lower not the colors for any individual except for the Prince
of Orange and the lords, my masters ; ' — when directly
Nicholas Koorn fired a gun. The first shot went through
the sail, broke the ropes and the ladder ; a second discharge
passed over us; and the third, done by a savage, perforated
LOOCKERMANS' VOYAGES 239
our princely colors about a foot above the head of Loocker-
mans, who kept constantly the colors in his hand; but we
continued our course, notwithstanding this insulting assault,
without returning the fire, or making any other reprisals
whatever, and descended gently the river." Other witnesses,
however, testified that Govert's demeanor was not quite so
lamb-like, but that he cried out to Koorn and his men:
" Fire, ye dogs ; and the devil take you ! "
Loockermans' voyages extended all along the coast, from
New England to Virginia, and at several places he acquired,
at different times, large tracts of wild lands, as, for example,
in Maryland, and at various points upon Long Island. On
Manhattan Island he held also a number of parcels of ground,
— notably, almost all the land lying between the present
Ann Street and the Versche Water, or Fresh Water, — the
little run of water forming one of the outlets of the Kolck
pond, and emptying into the East River near the present
James Street. Most of Loockermans' transactions in New
Amsterdam real estate are very difficult to trace, however,
from a peculiarity he seems to have had of avoiding, as far
as possible, the registry of his " ground-briefs," and much is
discoverable only through allusions and recitals in other
documents.
For this reason, we cannot tell exactly when Loockermans
acquired the large parcel of ground upon the present Hanover
Square, where he resided for a great part of his life. It, or
a portion of it, is recited to have been granted by the Dutch
government in 1643, but whether to Loockermans or to
some other person does not appear. There is evidence, how-
ever, that the westerly portion of the land, embracing about
one hundred and fifteen feet in frontage, and extending along
Hanover Square nearly to the easterly line of the present
Coffee Exchange, was originally granted either to Cornells
Leendertsen, Loockermans' business associate (who died prior
to 1646), or to Dirck Cornelissen, who appears to have been
his son. The latter married, in 1646, Marritje Janse, widow
of the ship-carpenter, Tymen Jansen, but died within two
240 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
or three years ; his widow marrying Govert Loockermans in
1649, this property passed to the latter, in right of his wife.
Dirck Cornelissen's house, which appears to have stood
about on the western end of the present Coffee Exchange,
was sold in 1667 or 1668 to Reynhout Reynhoutsen by
Loockermans.
As to the easterly portion of Loockermans' land, which
covered originally about one hundred and thirty feet front,
unless he is the person (as it seems quite probable that he
is) referred to as Govert Aertsen in a deed of 1645 from
Dirck Volckertsen, we have no information as to how he
acquired the land. The description given in that deed is as
follows : " A house and lot, where Dirck Cornelissen next
adjoins on the west side, and Jan Damen," — the so-called
outhoek, — " on the east." No disposition of this parcel by
Govert Aertsen can be found, and within two or three years
from the last-mentioned date Loockermans is known to have
been in possession of it.
In whatever manner he had acquired it, however, we find
Govert Loockermans, as early as 1649, in possession of this
large parcel of ground, — nearly three hundred feet in front-
age along the River Road, and part of it extending back
nearly or quite to the present Wall Street. Here he seems
to have at first established his residence in a house afterwards
occupied by Daniel Litscho and subsequently by Andries
Jochemsen as a tavern, the site of which is at present covered
by No. 125 Pearl Street; but in a few years he had built
a new residence for himself on a portion of his ground a
little farther west along the road. This latter building ap-
pears to have been a substantial edifice, of some size and
pretensions, and is quite clearly shown upon the " Duke's
Plan," supposed to represent the town as of the year 1661.
As early as 1654 it was enclosed with a high wall, provided
with a gate kept locked and barred by night : these particu-
lars we learn from the prosecution of one Willemsen for
burglary at this house in that year, as it was thought that
he must have had confederates to help him climb the wall.
ft.)
Plan of New Amsterdam
from the Stadt Huys to the Town
Palisades A.D. 1655
Compiled from the Dutch and
English Records by
THE LOOCKERMANS HOUSE
241
It is the fact that Loockermans' house was thus protected,
that leads to the conjecture that a portion of it may have
been used as his warehouse. The site of this house is now
occupied by the two unpretending buildings extending from
the Coffee Exchange to the corner of the modern Hanover
Street, and numbered 119 and 121 Pearl Street.
There can be little doubt that this was the same building
shown as occupying this spot in a plan made in the year
1719. This building was, as has been said, of large, and, in
fact, of unusually large, dimensions. It was of about thirty-
eight feet in front by forty-eight feet in depth ; and a kitchen
extension of about twenty feet square upon its east side
gives suggestions of quarters for the domestic slaves,1 as
the size of the main building does of its partial use for
warehouse purposes. Along the east side of the building
ran, in the year last above mentioned, a narrow cartway, now
forming a part of what is known as Hanover Street ; and
nearly a hundred feet in the rear of the house, upon the
back lane called "the Sloot," or ditch, stood a capacious
stable, or coach-house, some twenty by forty feet in size.
It is quite likely, however, that this last structure was built
after Loockermans' time.
Govert Loockermans' first wife had died before 1649, leav-
ing him with two little daughters, Marritje and Jannetje,
who were respectively about eight and six years of age at
the period mentioned. Upon the 20th of July of that year
he married, for his second wife, the widow, Marritje Janse.
This lady had been the wife of Tymen Jansen, a ship car-
penter in the employ of the West India Company, to whose
house upon the present Pearl Street just north of Wall, we
shall have occasion to allude hereafter. Tymen Jansen had
been for several years from 1633 the principal shipwright
1 In her will, made in 1677, Loockermans' widow Marritje provides for two of
the slave " boys," Manuel and Francis. The former was to be freed at the age
of twenty-five : as to the latter, she requires that her children " shall maintain
him with dyett and clothing, and good discipline ; not willing, neither desiring
that they should sell him alien and transport, neither to deliver him to the
service of a stranger." Lib. 1, Wills, N. Y. Surr. Office.
16
242 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
of the Company, at New Amsterdam, and had constructed
many vessels here : he had died some years before 1649,
however, leaving his widow with a daughter Elsie, known
according to the system of nomenclature in use among the
Netherlanders as Elsie Tymense, and who was about fifteen
or sixteen years of age at the time of her mother's marriage
to Govert Loockermans. Previous to this time, and in the
year 1646, Marritje Janse had married Dirck Cornelissen of
Wensveen, whose house and land upon the present Hanover
Square has just been referred to. Cornelissen died a year or
two after his marriage, leaving a son called Cornells Dircksen,
an infant of about two years of age at the time of his
mother's marriage to Loockermans. By his wife Marritje,
Govert Loockermans had one child, Jacob, born in 1652, who
in later years, following the English nomenclature, which
was gradually adopted by the Dutch after the surrender to
the English in 1664, was known as Jacob Loockermans.
The above-named persons constituted the family of Govert
Loockermans ; and out of their somewhat complicated rela-
tionship grew, apparently, certain important consequences
in after years.
Elsie Tymense did not remain many years in her stepfather's
house on the East River shore, for in the early part of 1652
she married a well-to-do merchant, Pieter Cornelissen Van-
derveen, from Amsterdam, and resided for a number of years
in her husband's house, near the southwest corner of the
present Pearl and Whitehall streets, where she was long a close
neighbor of Director-General Stuyvesant and his family.
Vanderveen having died about the year 1661, Elsie married
Jacob Leisler, of Frankfurt,1 two years later, and he, who had
come to New Amsterdam in the military service of the West
India Company, — Mr. Valentine calls him an "officer," —
now assumed the charge of her late husband's business, and
soon became, himself, a leading merchant of the town.
At his house upon the East River shore, G overt Loocker-
1 Whether it was the city of that name upon the Mayu River, or that upon the
Oder, does not appear.
THE RIVER FRONT
243
mans lived an active life for many years. He does not seem
to have cared to mingle much in the politics of his day, though
in 1647 he was one of the committee called " the Nine Men,"
chosen by the people, and who afterwards laid the grievances
of the colonists before the authorities in the Netherlands. In
1657 he also served one year as one of the city magistrates, or
"schepens," and at the same time he also held the office of
head or foreman of the fire company. He took an interest
besides in the affairs of the city militia company, in which
he was a lieutenant at the time of his death, under Captain
Martin Cregier.
It has been already stated that the Loockermans' house stood
within somewhat spacious grounds ; about one hundred and
fifty feet in its rear there was a wet depression, where there
seems to have been at one time a small pond ; here a drain
ditch was afterwards constructed, and this ditch, or " sloot,"
gave its name to a narrow lane which was in existence here
before the year 1728, and was long known as " Sloat Lane."
It is now covered by the extension of Beaver Street. Besides
thus caring for his rear grounds, Loockermans had an eye to
his fine river frontage. At an early day, he had built, at his
own expense, a Avail or piling all along the shore in front of his
premises, in order to protect the bank. Towards the western
end of his land and near Burger's Path, there was considerable
ground lying between the road and the shore, and Loockermans
made a petition to the Director-General and Council in 1656
for a grant of this ground u on which in future some build-
ing might be erected to the damage of petitioner." The
ground was granted to him accordingly, with the reservation
to the West India Company of the right to build a breastwork
along the piling. As has been previously stated, a good por-
tion of it, covering the present Hanover Square, was over-
grown with forest trees ; these were certainly in existence as
late as 1679, for they are shown upon the very valuable sketch
of the Labadists, Danker and Sluyter, in that year.1 Within
1 This wooded bank, although a very conspicuous feature in any view of the
East River shore of New Amsterdam, does not appear in that group of views
244 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
ten years from that period, however, the trees had probably all
disappeared, and about the year 1690 the " Square " began to
be built upon. A row of three or four houses of small size
soon occupied the larger part of the ground, and this was used
for building purposes until the early part of the last century,
when the then existing buildings were destroyed, and the land
thrown into the public thoroughfares about it.
Govert Loockermans died in the year 1671. Before that
time, his two daughters had been married, — the eldest,
Marritje, to Balthazar Bayard, a nephew of Director-General
Stuyvesant, in 1664 ; and Jannetje to Hans, the son of
Dr. Hans Kiersted, in 1667. Go vert's son, Jacob, who was
about nineteen years of age at his father's death, continued to
reside for some years with his mother at the homestead, but after
her death, in 1677, he took up his residence in the Province of
Maryland, succeeding to the estates of his father there. He
had pursued the study of medicine, and was a practising
" chyrurgeon '' in that colony, residing, according to Valentine,
at St. Mary's, in the southern part of the State. He appears,
however, afterwards as a magistrate of Dorchester County,
upon the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay.
There are not wanting indications of a lack of harmony in
the Loockermans family at an early date. When Govert
Loockermans died intestate, in 1671, under the English law
of descent his son Jacob became the heir to his father's con-
siderable landed estate : Jacob's half-brother, Cornells Dircksen,
which, under various names, such as the t( Allaerdt" and the " Seutter" views,
etc. (from the names of the publishers in whose works they are to be found),
represent substantially one and the same sketch, and that taken at a period some
years earlier than the oue of the Labadists, — probably at some time between
1667 and 1669. The reason for this is quite obvious. If the grove had been
represented in true perspective, it would have concealed from sight a number of
houses which the artists desired to make appear in their views of the town. The
Labadists resorted to the expedient of dwarfing the grove, while the other
draughtsman omitted it altogether from his view, afterwards supplying the houses
from some sketch taken from another point, with the result of lamentably distort-
ing the perspective of the whole view, and rendering it unquestionably and grossly
inaccurate. It is composed indeed, in all probability, of several distinct sections
thus patched together.
JACOB LEISLER
245
died young,1 and he also inherited an estate from him. Jacob
appears to have been much more under the influence of Elsie
Leisler, his half-sister upon his mother's side, than under that
of his half-sisters upon his fathers side ; and in 1679, he being
then, as stated, a resident of Maryland, he conveyed to Elsie's
husband, Jacob Leisler, all his right to the estate in the
Province of New York of Govert Loockermans, his father,
as well as his right to all that which had come to him through
his mother — or rather through his half-brother, Cornelis
Dircksen — from her former husband, Dirck Cornelissen.
Nearly the whole estate of Govert Loockermans and of his
wife had thus come into the hands of his step-daughter Elsie.2
It is foreign to the purposes of this work to treat at much
length of the occurrences which led to the condemnation and
execution for treason, on the 16th of May, 1691, of Jacob
Leisler, and of his son-in-law, Jacob Milborne.3 It may be
sufficient to recall to mind the fact that upon hearing of the
Revolution of 1689 in England, which had driven James II.
from the throne and replaced him by his daughter Mary and
by her royal consort William, Prince of Orange, Governor
Dongan of New York abandoned his government of the
colony and sailed for England. The question of the day then
became, who was to take charge of the affairs of the colony ?
At this early period the principles came into play which after-
1 Cornelis Dircksen died in the early part of the year 1678, very soon after the
death of his mother.
2 It is true that in several conveyances of portions of the Govert Loockermans'
estate, made within a few years after his death, the two daughters join as parties ;
hut it seems evident that this was done either by reason of some agreement for the
purpose of quieting dissension, or else to satisfy purchasers who had raised ohjec-
tions growing out of the obscure or ambiguous clause in the Articles of Surrender
in 1664, that the Dutch "shall enjoy their owne customes concerning their inherit-
ances." In later conveyances, we find no attention paid to the daughters. It mav
be further mentioned, in this connection, that while Govert Loockermans' widow,
Marritje, in her will, executed in 1677, bequeaths various articles of jewelry and
other keepsakes to her own children and grandchildren, no mention whatever is
made of her two step-daughters.
3 A lucid account of this matter will be found in Chapter XV. of Mr. D. T.
Valentine's " History of New York."
246 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
wards formed the foundation of the controversy which termi-
nated in the American Revolution. On the one hand was the
party of Legality, whose doctrine was that the colonies, being
simple dependencies of the Crown of England, with their local
administrations fixed by the Central Government at London,
those administrations ought to continue until they were
changed by that Central Government, and that consequently,
in the present case, the control of affairs, in the absence of
instructions from England, ought to remain with the Lieuten-
ant-Governor, Francis Nicholson, and the former Council.
Prominent among the men of this party were Colonel Nicholas
Bayard, the brother-in-law of Marritje Loockermans, and
Stephanus van Cortlandt, her cousin, the son of Govert
Loockermans' sister Anneken.
The other party was the party of Expediency ; they con-
sidered that the management of their own affairs ought to
belong to the people of the colony. They were not prepared
as yet to assert that they " are and of right ought to be " free
and independent, but they determined to take possession of
what they considered the vacant government. They contrived
to oust their opponents, and by means of a self-appointed
" Committee of Safety," usually resorted to in similar cases,
they conferred the chief power upon their leading man, Jacob
Leisler. The legality of this action was of course denied
by the opposite party, and in asserting and maintaining his
authority, Leisler acted with but little discretion. In spite of
the frail nature of his power, he affected to consider his
opponents as rebels and traitors, drove the leaders among them
from the colony, and confiscated the estates of several of them,
and upon their subsequent return to New York he threw
Bayard into prison, where he remained for over a year ; while
Stephanus van Cortlandt succeeded in making his escape
from the officers armed with a warrant for his arrest for high
treason.
When, finally, in March, 1691, the new governor, Colonel
Henry Sloughter, arrived from England, Leisler succeeded, by
his punctilios about delivering over the government into the
THE EXECUTIONS
247
hands of Sloughter, in creating a hostile feeling in the mem-
bers of the new administration; they immediately inclined
towards the party of Leisler's opponents, and his arrest, trial,
condemnation, and execution for treason followed, together
with the similar process in the case of his son-in-law, Jacob
Milborne.
The malignant haste, however, with which these prose-
cutions were urged, and the precipitation with which the
sentences were carried out, takes away all merit from the
proceedings, and leaves them mere judicial murders. As
Leisler's seizure of power — technically illegal, no doubt
— was unquestionably made for and in behalf of the reigning
sovereigns William and Mary, every one concerned in the
prosecution of the prisoners knew perfectly well that William
and Mary would never have permitted them to be punished
as traitors if the case had reached them in any proper way.
However exasperating Leisler's acts had been to his enemies,
there were other remedies to redress such wrongs as they
had suffered; their evident malice deprived them of any
sympathy from the great body of the people, by whom they
were looked upon in no other light than as murderers, while
their victims were glorified as heroes and martyrs.
As for Elsie Leisler and her children, the blow fell upon
them with crushing force. Four years afterwards the Eng-
lish Parliament reversed the attainder for treason of Leisler
and Milborne, and restored their confiscated property to their
heirs ; but most of the joy of life had departed for Elsie
Leisler. Always she could see before her that dark May
morning, with the rain pouring down upon the scaffold and
the angry or pitying crowd around it, and could hear the
words of her son-in-law : " We are thoroughly wet with rain,
but in a little time we shall be washed with the Holy Spirit,"
or those of her husband, as the handkerchief was bound about
his head : " I hope my eyes shall see our Lord Jesus Christ
in heaven ; I am ready ! I am ready ! "
"Her family misfortunes," says Valentine, speaking of
Mrs. Leisler, "surrounded her with sympathetic neighbors,
248 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
but she maintained a reserved and humble deportment, mix-
ing but little with the world, and confining herself to her
own domestic sphere." That her troubles had endeared her
to her children is well attested, across two centuries of time,
by so prosaic an evidence as the time-stained records in the
New York Register's office, wherein, on the 19th of July,
1699, Jacob Leisler, the younger, appoints as his attorney-
in-fact, "his dear and affectionate mother, Elsie Leisler,
wicldow." 1
The Loockermans' homestead upon the present Hanover
Square had passed out of the hands of that family some
years before the struggle between the Leislerian and the anti-
Leislerian factions took place. Although somewhat outside
of the plan of our survey, it may be of some interest to follow
the subsequent history of this property for a short period.
What remained of it, — for several parcels had been previ-
ously sold off from time to time — came, within a short time
after the death, in 1677 or 1678, of Marritje, the widow of
G overt Loockermans, into the hands of one John Robinson,
who purchased the family residence. This man was a mer-
chant of New York, who was interested in the export of
flour, and who, at the time he acquired the Loockermans'
homestead, was engaged in the construction of a flour-mill
upon the small stream known as the Sawkill, which emptied
into the East River about at the foot of the present Seventy-
fourth Street, along which stream he had a farm of nearly
forty acres carved out of the forest.2 There he became in
1 See Liber XXII. of Conveyances, page 323.
2 Mr. D. T. Valentine, having read in the "Journal " of Rev. Charles Woolley,
who visited New York about 1679, an account of a bear having been " treed " in
or near an orchard belonging to John Robinson (Avith whom Woolley was connected
either by relationship or by business interests), — and apparently not having ob-
served that John Robinson's farm lay in the midst of the then unbroken forest
along the East River shore, where the presence of a bear at that time was no
great marvel, — has calmly proceeded in some of his historical writings to transfer
the bear hunt to the immediate vicinity of the house and small parcel of land
belonging to Robinson near the present Hanover Square. Mr. Valentine has not
only conducted his bear through three or four miles of open farming country
into the heart of a good-sized town, and led the animal over the town ditch and
WILLIAM COX
249
some way connected in business dealings with William Cox
to whom on February 12, 1684, he sold a half-interest in his
mill and farm.
William Cox was in some respects a singular character,
about whose history not very much is known. He seems to
have been a young man with considerable means, who had ap-
parently been in New York for some little time prior to
1683, for in that year he was an alderman of the city. With
him, in the city, resided his mother, whom he, as well as she
herself, calls by the curious appellation of " Alice Cox, abas
Bono." 1 As to his business, he called himself sometimes a
merchant, and at other times a " bolter," from his milling
operations.
In 1685, William Cox married a young woman who was
destined to figure more prominently in the affairs of the day
than she could have desired. She wras Sarah, the daughter of
Captain Thomas Bradley, who with her father and her young
brothers Samuel and Henry had come over from England and
taken up their residence in New York. She is said to have
been handsome and dashing, but was rather illiterate, for in
various documents executed by her in her earlier years she
makes her mark in the signature, — though not so in after
years.
On the 21st of January, 1688 (N. S.), William Cox bought
from John Robinson his house and ground previously spoken
of upon the present Hanover Square, being the former Loock-
ermans' homestead ; Cox himself may never have resided in
this house, for in about a year from this time we find him
purchasing another house upon the north side of Wall Street,
which street was then beginning to be built up with a better
palisades into a non-existent orchard, but, what is worse, he has afforded an
opportunity to some of the writers who have followed him, for some very pain-
fully elaborated attempts at witticisms respecting Mr. Valentine's bear and the
" bears " of tbe supposed neighboring Wall Street.
1 By the will of this lady, bearing date June 13, 1694, she bequeaths to her
" dearly beloved brother, Mr. Robert Blackburne, dry-fish monger in London,"
the sum of £100. The rest of her estate she gives to John Theobalds, one of
her executors, u to dispose of the same to his children, or to whomsoever he
pleaseth." (See Will, N. Y. Surrogate's office.)
250 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
class of houses than had previously been found there, and in
this latter dwelling he unquestionably resided during the
short remainder of his life.
It was in the summer of the year 1689 that the community
was in a ferment over the action of Jacob Leisler and his
party in seizing upon the government of the colony; Wil-
liam Cox became a prominent supporter of Leisler, was
one of the so-called " Committee of Safety " of the Leisler-
ians, and lost his life about August, 1689, while engaged upon
the business of his chief. The account of this affair is given
with considerable flippancy by John Tuder, Cox's political
enemy (afterwards recorder of the city), in a letter, dated
August — , 1689, to Captain Nicholson, the ousted Lieutenant-
Governor : —
" Mr. Cox, to show his fine cloaths, undertooke to goe to Amboy
to proclaime the King, who coming whome againe, was fairely
drowned, which accident startled our commanders here very much :
there is a good rich widdow left. The manner of his being
drowned was comeing on board in a cannow from Captn Cornelis'
Point at Staten Islands, goeing into the boate, slipt downe be-
twixt the cannow and the boate, the water not being above his
chiun, but very muddy, stuck fast in, and striving to get out,
bobbing his head under, receaved to much water in. They
brought him ashore with life in him, but all would not fetch him
againe."
The u good rich widdow " did not remain a widow long,
for in a very short time she married J ohn Oort, who is some-
times spoken of as a merchant, and at others as a ship cap-
tain, but his married life was of short duration. The fact is,
that among this little coterie of English merchants and cap-
tains and their families, events succeeded one another with
bewildering rapidity. On the 15th of July, 1689, William
Cox, then apparently in full health and vigor, executed his
last will and testament, and on the 9th of August following,
after the unfortunate occurrence whereby he had " receaved
to much water in," his will was admitted to probate. By
WILLIAM COX'S WILL
251
the 15th of May, 1691, Sarah Oort had about finished her
mourning for both her deceased husbands, for upon that day
she took out letters of administration upon the estate of the
late John Oort; while upon the next day, the 16th of May, a
license was issued, under the forms of the colonial law, for
her marriage to Captain William Kidd.
The newly married couple resided for several years in the
house which Mrs. Kidd's first husband, William Cox, had
purchased, upon the present Pearl Street. This house had
passed to Cox's widow by virtue of a very curious provision
in the will of her husband. In the first part of this document
Cox appears to have designed the house in question for his
wife's brother : " I give to Samuel Bradley, my brother-in-
law, my other house, which I bought of Mr. John Robinson,
or this house which I now live in,1 my wife taking her first
choice, and God sending my brother-in-law an heyrc, that he
call his name Cox Bradley " : later the testator remembers
a moral obligation which he considers himself under, and con-
tinues : " My desire is that this house where I now dwell in
shall be for my brother Samuel and his heyres as above
expressed, by reason of fulfilling an oath formerly solemnly
sworne to my mother, she forcing me to passion, in fulfilling
whereof I desire that there may be no contention after my
decease, concerning ye said house." After making several
bequests to his mother, and to others, Cox left the remainder,
being a considerable estate, to his wife Sarah, — the goods
in his store were alone inventoried at 1900Z., — so that the
stories about her later husband, Captain William Kidd, be-
ing a needy adventurer, when he started out upon his fatal
voyage in the " Adventure " galley, five years later, are quite
false.
The tendency of modern historical criticism — at any rate
among American writers — is not to regard William Kidd as
the Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones which he was once popularly
considered, but to look upon him as having been to a consider-
1 Upon the north side of Wall Street.
252 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
able extent a vicarious sacrifice to save the reputation of men
occupying a great deal higher station than himself.
If, at the present day, the President of the United States,
together with the Secretary of State, and three or four more
members of the Cabinet and governors of States or Territories,
should agree, in private conference, that inasmuch as thefts,
highway robberies, and train robberies, kidnapping, and other
crimes of violence had increased to an intolerable degree
within the territories of the United States, but that on
account of the oppressive taxation necessary to support the
military operations of the country in various quarters of the
globe, no further demands ought to be made or could safely be
made upon the heavily burdened people; and should there-
upon form an association — each one contributing a certain
amount of money to it — for the purpose of equipping a pri-
vate armed force to arrest or to destroy the outlaws, and stipu-
lating that each one of the association should receive a certain
proportion of the money and effects to bo taken from such
outlaws ; if in addition to this, it should be agreed that the
leader of this force, as well as the men under his command,
were themselves to receive no compensation for their services
except a further proportion of the effects of the alleged law-
breakers, — if all this were to be done, it is very certain that a
general chorus of animadversion would be raised, not only by
the opposite political party in this country, but by all the
civilized nations of the earth.
This, however, is substantially what was done in England
in the year 1695. In the course of the wars between France
and England, piracy had greatly increased upon the seas, much
to the disturbance of the English, who looked upon the crime
in an altogether different light when it was carried on against
their commerce than when it was maintained (largely by
themselves) against the Spanish. William III. was particu-
larly anxious to have the pirates suppressed, and as they were
supposed to have a good deal of support in the American
colonies, and especially in New York, the king had selected
Richard Coote, Earl of Bellamont, as Governor of New York,
BELLAMONT'S SCHEME
253
to supplant Colonel Benjamin Fletcher, and had given him
special instructions to operate against the pirates. It now
became a question how these operations against the pirates
should be carried on : the government, deeply involved in the
war with France, could spare neither ships, men, nor money ;
but the Earl of Bellamont, in conjunction with Robert
Livingston of New York (who is said to have been the origina-
tor of the scheme), formed a plan for sending out a private
expedition, under warrant from the English government.
For the commander of this expedition, Bellamont and Living-
ston fixed upon Captain William Kidd, who had now been
living for about four years in the house at the present
Hanover Square in New York. Kidd, who is said to have been
a native of Greenock, at the mouth of the Clyde River in
Scotland (then a mere village of fishers), was about thirty-five
years of age at this time, a careful and experienced sea-captain
of good repute, who as early as 1691 had served with dis-
tinction against the French. Kidd was also familiar with the
haunts of the pirates, and had sanguine views about the ease
with which he could capture them.
Having submitted their plan to the king, and received his
sanction, articles of agreement were drawn up on the 10th of
October, 1695, between the Earl of Bellamont and Kidd,
whereby Bellamont undertakes to procure, from the king or
from the commissioners of Admiralty, commissions to Kidd to
fight the king's enemies or pirates, and also agrees to furnish
four-fifths of the cost of buying and fitting up a proper ves-
sel, the remaining fifth being furnished by Kidd and Living-
ston together. Kidd on his part agrees to take such prizes as
he can, and forthwith to make the best of his way to Boston to
condemn them, " without touching at any other place whatso-
ever," and he further agrees to enlist his men, " no purchase,
no pay," — that is, they must look to their prizes for compen-
sation. Both Kidd and Livingston entered into bonds for a
considerable amount to secure their part of the undertaking.
As for the Earl of Bellamont's share, it was in part made up,
in sums of about £1000 each, by the following distinguished
254 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
partners: Lord John Somers, Keeper of the Great Seal;
the Earl of Romney, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; the Earl
of Shrewsbury, Secretary of State; and the Earl of Or-
ford, First Lord of the Admiralty. One tenth part was
to be reserved for the king, in token of his approval of the
scheme. Kidd was thereupon granted two commissions, one
bearing date December 10, 1695, an ordinary commission to
act against the French; the other an extraordinary one
dated 26th January, 1695-96, to apprehend and seize all
pirates.
The dangers of admitting a large body of sailors into this
sort of speculation, by making their pay contingent upon
their success, were fully realized in England. Sir Edmund
Harrison, who was one of the contributors to the enterprise,
took care, — as we are informed in the pamphlet upon the
Kidd Case, known as " Letters from a Person of Quality," etc.
(avowedly written in the interest of the Earl of Bellamont)
— that everyone of Kidd's officers, and almost all the seamen,
had settled families in England : " true it is, this last care
was in a great degree rendered ineffectual, for most of his crew
were pressed into the King's service before he got out of the
river." Of course it is incredible that Kidd should not have
complained of this interference with his commission ; the act
was evidently notorious ; the intervention of the king or of the
First Lord of the Admiralty, both of whom were partners
with Kidd in tins enterprise, would undoubtedly have been
sufficient to restore these picked men at once ; and Kidd
lingered at Plymouth until April, 1696, and yet he was per-
mitted by those in power to depart on such an errand as his
with hardly any men, and without the prospect of getting
any except the unstable characters whom he might succeed in
alluring into his service in the colonies. He sailed finally for
New York with his ship, the now notorious " Adventure "
galley, and at that port he filled out his complement of men.
Of their character the English government was fully informed
by a letter from Governor Benjamin Fletcher to the Lords
CAPTAIN KIDD AND HIS CREW
255
of Trade in England : 1 " One Captain Kidd lately arrived
here, and produced a commission under the Great Seal of
England, for suppressing of piracy. When he was here
many nocked to him from all parts, men of desperate fortunes
and necessitous, in expectation of getting vast treasure. . . .
It is generally believed here they will have money per fas aid
nefas ; that if he miss of the design intended, for which he
has commission, 't will not be in Kidcl's power to govern such
a hord of men, under no pay."
In July, 1696, Kidd sailed from New York for the Straits
of Madagascar. From this time, for more than a year and a
half, we have no accurate knowledge of what took place on
the " Adventure " galley. Kidd's own full statement was never
allowed to be made public, but even from the one-sided testi-
mony produced upon the so-called " trials " of the indictments
against him (taken in conjunction with a few known facts),
there is the strongest evidence that what had been anticipated
actually occurred. The partners in this enterprise had been
too sanguine. Such pirates as were upon the seas kept care-
fully out of Kidd's way, and French prizes were few and far
between. The lawless characters composing the greater part of
the crew of the " Adventure " became enraged at their ill-luck,
and at the failure of Kidd's promises to them ; they mutinied
about the month of September, 1697, and from that time for a
period of about four months, Kidd appears to have been prac-
tically a prisoner in the hands of his rebellious crew. Their
ascendancy over him was greatly enhanced soon after the
above-named date by an unfortunate occurrence, whereby
Kidd, in a fit of passion, struck with a water bucket one of
the mutineers named William Moore in such a manner that
he died within a day or two from the effects of the
blow.2
1 The letter will be found in 4 Col. Doc., p. 275. It is not dated, but must
have been written iu the latter part of 1696.
2 Kidd, as is well known, was tried at the Old Bailey upon an indictment for
the killing of this man. The trial took place at the same time with the trials of
the indictments for piracy. The witnesses for the government were the same two
256 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Within the period of four months, above mentioned, five or
six vessels are stated in the indictments and in the testimony
taken thereupon to have been captured by the " Adventure "
galley. Most of these were Arabian or " Moorish " coasters
of the most insignificant size and value, one of them, of fifty
tons' burden, yielded a little coffee and sugar, and " some sugar
candy ; " out of another, some coffee, pepper, and myrrh, worth
persons made use of as State's evidence in the piracy trials, — the mutineer,
Joseph Palmer, and the drunken surgeon, Robert Bradinham. Kidd had no
witnesses for his defence except those members of his crew who had been
brought with him under arrest, from America to England. In the piracy
trials their mouths were closed in his behalf, for they were jointly indicted with
him ; but in tbe murder trial, he was allowed to call them as witnesses. Un-
fortunately, however, they had seen little or nothing of the occurrence. Kidd,
it must be remembered, under the criminal procedure of that period, was not
allowed to testify in his own behalf. The respective trials for murder and for
piracy throw much light one upon another. It appears that about a fortnight
before the killing of William Moore, Kidd had fallen in with a vessel called the
" Loyal Captain," which he had allowed to proceed upon its way, to the great
dissatisfaction of his crew ; the sailor, Moore, it seems, had been charged with
exciting discontent among the others, by going about among them, saying that
if the captain would have listened to him, he could have taken the vessel, with-
out incurring any liability. The story of the killing, as given by the witness
Palmer, was this : "Captain Kidd came and walked on the deck, and walks by
this Moore, and when he came to him says, ' which way could you have put me
in a way to take the ship and been clear ? ' ' Sir,' says William Moore, 1 1 never
spoke such a Avord, nor ever thought such a thing,' upon which Captain Kidd
called him a ' lousy dog,' and says William Moore, ' If I am a lousy dog, you
have made me so ; you have brought me to ruin and many more ' — upon his
saying this, says Captain Kidd, ' Have I ruined you, ye dog ? ' and took a bucket
bound with iron hoops, and struck him on the right side of the head, of which
he died the next day."
Macaulay, writing up the glories of his idolized William III. and of Lord John
Somers, tells of the " agony of remorse " with which William Moore uttered the
above remark. If one can shake off the charm of the great historian's pictur-
esque style long enough to examine critically his remarkably inaccurate account
of this affair, he will be apt to conclude, — inasmuch as the occurrence took place be-
fore the alleged piratical depredations of the " Adventure " galley, — that William
Moore's remark to his captain was made much more in a spirit of surly reproach
fur having been induced by him to enter an unremunerative service than in any
"agony of remorse." As for William Moore himself, he appears to have been
previously in trouble, and under arrest in New York upon several occasions, for
difficulties between himself and his superior officers. (Vide Colonial MSS.,
N. Y. State Library.)
KIDD'S ALLEGED PIRACIES
257
about $100, were taken on board the " Adventure/' and the
vessel then was allowed to proceed upon its way ; this was
the earliest act of piracy charged, and as it is hardly credible
that these trifles formed the whole cargo of the " Moorish "
vessel, they may have been nothing more than the private
property of a Portuguese who was transferred at this time
to the " Adventure," to act as an interpreter; no cross-exam-
ination by counsel, upon the trials, was permitted to throw
any light upon these matters. As to the other captures, one
or two of them were made by boats' crews, and the whole
series of them seems to be much more the work of a lawless
gang of ruffians, ready to take anything that came in their
way, than that of an experienced sea-captain, who was not
laboring under any suspicions of lunacy.
On the 27th of November, 1697, the " Adventure " captured
off Surat a Moorish ship, which, according to Kidd's claim,
was sailing under French papers. This of course he was
justified in seizing under his commission, and it then became
his duty to have taken her at once to Boston, in pursuance
of his agreement with Bellamont, to have her condemned in
a prize court. The vessel and her cargo, however, were of
but little value, and the crew, as was further claimed by
Kidd (and with great probability of truth), refused to waste
so many months on a voyage from the Persian Gulf to
Boston ; the few articles of value of this vessel's cargo seem
to have been taken possession of by the " Adventure's "
men, and some of them carried on shore and sold at dif-
ferent points along the coast.
On the 30th of January, 1698 (N. S.), however, the "Ad-
venture " captured a prize of a different character. This was
the famous " Quedagh " or " Quiddah " merchant. She was
sailing with French papers, as was claimed by Kidd, and her
cargo, of which a large part belonged to some Armenian mer-
chants, was a very valuable one. Kidd's crew were no more
disposed to sail to Boston with this prize than with the
others. They had already done enougli in the way of mutiny
and piracy to bring them into the most imminent danger of
17
258 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
their lives, but they had now in their hands enough to com-
pensate them for the risks they had run. A goodly portion
of the valuable cargo of the " Quedagh " was sold, in what
manner we have no definite information, at various points
upon the coasts of India; the u Adventure's " crew divided
among themselves a large amount of money obtained in this
way ; and then the greater portion of the men, being nearly
a hundred in number, abandoned the vessels, went on shore
with their gains, and dispersed themselves in such directions
as they thought best.
There remained now about fifty men with Kidd, and with
these he started to return to the American colonies. The
" Adventure " having become leaky, it was abandoned, and
Kidd and his crew sailed in the " Quedagh " merchant, and
seem to have arrived in the West Indies in the latter part
of 1698, or in the early part of 1699.
In the mean time, reports of the work of the " Adventure "
galley reached England, and excited great consternation
among Captain Kidd's distinguished partners. Political ani-
mosities ran high at this time, and the party opposed to the
government eagerly seized upon this piece of scandal for
political capital. Vigorous measures of some kind had to
be taken by the administration, and accordingly, upon the
16th of December, 1698, before any definite or trustworthy
account of Captain Kidd's doings could possibly have reached
England, a proclamation was issued by the English govern-
ment, offering a pardon to all persons guilty of piratical
practices, who should surrender themselves before a certain
date to commissioners named for that purpose. From the
benefit of this proclamation, Captain William Kidd was ex-
pressly excluded.
It is uncertain whether or not Kidd first heard of this
proclamation in the West Indies, though it seems quite
probable that he did. Under any circumstances, and whether
guilty or innocent, he had to anticipate much trouble ahead
for himself ; and it was probably from this reason that he
seems to have adopted an expedient the practical effect of
KIDD RETURNS TO NEW YORK
259
which has been to obscure both his own conduct and that
of the high-placed parties with whom he was associated,
but which — though ill-judged — is not incompatible with
his own innocence of the main charges against him.
This expedient was to retain, or to give the impression that
he retained, upon his surrender of himself to the government,
a sufficient security under his own control, to enable him to
force the government to grant him the immunity from prose-
cution or the pardon, to which he claimed to be entitled.
Accordingly, leaving his vessel and what remained of her
cargo (and this was of great value, according to his asser-
tion) under the care of a small guard at some undisclosed
place in the West Indies, Kidd with forty or fifty of his men
made their appearance in the early part of 1699, in a small
coasting vessel in the vicinity of New York, and after de-
positing certain valuables upon Gardiner's Island, and at one
or two other points, the captain opened communications,
through Mr. James Emott, a New York attorney, witli
Lord Bellamont, who was then at Boston, he being Governor
of Massachusetts as well as of New York. Kidd's proposi-
tion was a simple one. He offered to turn over to Lord
Bellamont and to the government the " Quedagh " merchant
and such part of the cargo and of the proceeds thereof as
remained in his hands, upon receiving a pardon and indem-
nity against loss on the bond which he had given. With his
communication to Lord Bellamont, Kidd sent, by his agent
Emott, as announced by Bellamont to the Council in Boston,
" two French papers, found in two ships taken by said Kidds
Co., by violence against his will."
There is little question that at this stage of the affair, Bel-
lamont accepted Kidd's version of the transactions which had
taken place, and wished to accept his proposition. 44 1 make
no doubt," he writes to Kidd, "but to obtain the king's par-
don for you and those few men you have left, who, I under-
stand, have been faithful to you and refused, as well as you,
to dishonor the commission you had from England." After-
wards, when it became evident that Kidd was to be sacrificed
2G0 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
to the interests of the Whig administration, it suited Bella-
mont to proclaim that his letter to Kidd had been merely a
lying one. In a letter from New York to Secretary Vernon,
dated December 6, 1700, he says: "When I writ that letter
to Kid by Burgesse, I had an account that he was certainly
turned pyrate ; and then I could not be blamed to have a
just indignation against him, and to try hy all means to get
him into my hands, and 'tis plain menacing him had not been
the way to invite him hither, but rather wheedling, and that
way I took, and after that manner I got him at last into Bos-
ton, when I secured him.,,
Whatever Bellamont's motives may have been, and under
whatever orders, if any, from the English government he may
have been acting, it is certain that Kidd, soon after his land-
ing at Boston, was placed under arrest and sent to England.
There he remained in prison, without being brought to trial,
from the summer of 1G99 till May, 1701, — nearly two years.
What the reasons were for this delay, we do not know ; they
may have arisen from an attempt to extort from Kidd his
secret as to the alleged wealth he had concealed ; or there
may have been compunction about carrying out the punish-
ment of Kidd ; or perhaps the opposition party did not allow
the government a free hand ; in the absence of authentic in-
formation, we can only surmise.
Just at this point, the criminality of Lord Somers and of his
associates — not excepting the king — commences. It was
of course evident that if Kidd was not to be punished, there
was scarcely a possibility that any of his mutinous crew, by
that time scattered all over the globe, would ever be brought
to punishment, and the scandal of the " Adventure's " doings
would remain, as a perpetual reproach to the Whig adminis-
tration, and a menace to the not too firmly established Prot-
estant succession to the English throne.
Two courses were open to the administration : one was to
examine carefully and impartially Kidd's story, and if it
were found to be true to acquit him, and they themselves
to assume the opprobrium of their ill-advised and indecent
TRIAL OF CAPTAIN KIDD 261
(though not criminal) speculative enterprise ; the other
course was to convict Kidd, and then to pose as the victims
of a wicked deceiver, — they seem to have chosen the latter
course.
Few persons can read the accounts of the trials of Kidd
and of his associates at the Old Bailey, on the 8th and 9th of
May, 1701, without a feeling of pain and disgust. The trial
of Kidd for the murder of William Moore ; and the trials of
Kidd and of half a score of the seamen of his crew on six
separate indictments for piracy, — all took place within those
two days. In a matter of such supreme importance, no
counsel was allowed to the prisoners, although Doctor (in the
Civil Law) Oldish and Mr. Proctor Lemnion stood ready in the
court room to appear for Kidd. It had been only a short time
before when the young Lord Ashley, rising in Parliament to
speak in favor of the bill then pending, which allowed coun-
sel to persons tried upon charges of treason, lost his control
and was for a short time unable to proceed ; then recover-
ing himself, he said : " How can I, Sir, produce a stronger
argument in favour of this bill than my own failure ? My
fortune, my character, my life, are not at stake. I am speak-
ing to an audience whose kindness might well inspire me
with courage. And yet, from mere nervousness, from mere
want of practice in addressing large assemblies, I have lost
my recollection. I am unable to go on with my argument.
How helpless then must be a poor man, who, never having
opened his lips in public, is called upon to reply without a
moment's preparation to the ablest and most experienced ad-
vocates in the kingdom, and whose faculties are paralysed by
the thought that, if he fails to convince his hearers, he will
in a few hours die on the gallows, and leave beggary and in-
famy to those who are dearest to him ! "
Lord Ashley's speech had created a great impression in
England at the time, but it does not seem to have made
much impression upon the judges of the court which tried
William Kidd. They were less loud-mouthed, it is true, than
their predecessor, the bawling monster, Jeffreys, whose memory
262 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
was still fresh and hideous among men, but otherwise his
mantle seems to have fallen upon worthy shoulders. They give
the impression that they were men appointed to perform an
unsavory piece of work, and who had made up their minds to
go stoutly through with it. Even the understrapper, clerk of
the arraignments, was permitted to take a hand in the brow-
beating. A specimen extract or two from the court proceed-
ings may be not without interest.1 The prisoners had been
brought into court to plead to the indictments :
" Cl. Arr. William Kidd, hold up thy hand.
Kidd. May it please your Lordships, I desire you to permit me
to have counsel.
Recorder (Sir Salathiel Lovell). What would you have counsel
for?
Kidd. My Lord, I have some matter of law relating to the
indictment, and I desire I may have counsel to speak to it.
Dr. Oxenden. What matter of law can you have?
Cl. Arr. How does he know what it is he is charged with? I
have not told him.
Recorder. Mr. Kidd, do you know what you mean by matter
of law?
Kidd. I know what I mean. I desire to put off my trial as
long as I can, till I can get my evidence ready.
Rec. Mr. Kidd, you had best mention the matter of law you
would insist on.
Kidd. I desire your Lordship's favor. I desire Dr. Oldish and
Mr. Lemmon may be heard as to my case.
Cl. Arr. What can he have counsel for before he has
pleaded? . . .
Kidd. I beg your Lordships' patience till I can procure my
papers. I had a couple of French passes, which I must make use
of in order to my justification.
1 Kidd was undoubtedly, as he mournfully exclaimed in the court-room,
" without money and without friends." The aim of the Tory opposition party
was to have him convicted of piracy, and to fasten guilty knowledge of his pir-
atical designs upon the government, — not at all to have him acquitted.
KIDD DEPRIVED OF COUNSEL 263
Rec. That is not matter of law. You have had long notice of
your trial, and might have prepared for it. How long have you
had notice of your trial?
Kidd. A matter of a fortnight.
Dr. Oxenden. Can you tell the names of any persons you
would make use of in your defence ?
Kidd. I sent for them, but I could not have them.
Dr. O. Where were they then?
Kidd. I brought them to my Lord Bellamont in New England.
Rec. What were their names? You cannot tell without book ? 1
Mr. Kidd, the court sees no reason to put off your trial, therefore
you must plead. . . .
Kidd. I beg your Lordships I may have counsel admitted, and
that my trial may be put off. I am not really prepared for it.
Rec. Nor never will be, if you can help it.
Kidd. If your Lordships permit those papers to be read, they
will justify me. I desire my counsel may be heard. . . .
Mr. Coniers.2 We admit of no counsel for him. . . .
Mr. Lemmon. He ought to have his papers delivered to him,
because they are very material for his defence ; he has endeavored
to have them, but could not get them.
Mr. Coniers. You are not to appear for any one till he pleads,
and that the court assigns you for his counsel."
So the trials were hurried on then and there. The wit-
nesses for the prosecution, two doubtful characters of the
crew, one of whom, as accidentally appeared, had previously
stated that Captain Kidd would be able to justify himself in
everything he had done, went through their parrot-like stories
on each of the several indictments. Hearsay evidence,
opinions, and assertions as to Kidd's motives and intentions
1 Meaning evidently his lists of the crew.
2 For the government. It is well to remember that in the case of Captain
Cuddiford, who was accused of piracy and tried at about this time, the court
allowed him counsel without hesitation. In Kidd's case, however, it is quite
probable that the officers of the government saw very clearly that counsel for
Kidd would be likely to ask many questions that would prove embarrassing for
the eminent partners of the latter.
264 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
were all admitted in evidence without question, — till Kidd
asked one of the witnesses in despair : " Mr. Bradinham, are
you not promised your life to swear away mine?" The
cross-examinations of these witnesses by the prisoners on
trial for their lives, ignorant men, most of whom prob-
ably had never been in a court-room before, would have
been ludicrous, had it not been so pitiable. The prisoners
were not allowed to testify in their own behalf, nor for each
other, and had really nothing to offer which could be looked
at in the light of a defence.1 They were found guilty, almost
as a matter of course, and then, when asked by the court
what they had to say, the following remarkable colloquy
took place, between Kidd and Chief Baron Ward, who pro-
nounced the sentence :
" Kidd. I have many papers for my defence, if I could have
had them.
L. C. B. Ward. What papers were they?
Kidd. My French passes.
L. C. B. Ward. Where are they?
Kidd. My Lord Bellamont had them.
L. C. B. Ward. If you had had the French papers, you should
have condemned the ships.
Kidd. I could not because of the mutiny in my ship.
L. C. B. Ward. If you had anything of disability upon you to
make your defence, you should hare objected to it at the beginning
of your trial. What you mean by it noiv I cannot tell.,>
So the " trial " ended. Captain Kidd may possibly have
been a pirate, but it was not proved by these proceedings ;
they may perhaps be the subject of future revision by a
higher tribunal, — in the words of Rudyard Kipling : —
il When the last grim joke is entered
In the big, black Book of Jobs."
1 Kidd had three or four naval officers present to testify to his character. All
spoke well of him, but this of course had little or no bearing upon the cases on
trial. As for the killing of the sailor Moore, it may have amounted to a grade
of manslaughter ; but if the mutinous disposition of the men existed, as there is
every reason to believe it did, the matter would not have been taken notice of
under similar circumstances on any other vessel in the service.
EXECUTION OF CAPTAIN KIDD
265
Three da}^s after the trial, upon the 12th of May, 1701,
William Kidd was hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping.1
His confiscated effects, supposed to have been mainly such
portions of the proceeds of the cargo of the " Quedagh " mer-
chant as the English government could get into its posses-
sion, and amounting to something over £6400, were added to
the endowment of Greenwich Hospital, the unfinished towers
and quadrangle of which were probably some of the last
objects which Captain Kidd beheld as he looked from the
scaffold upon the muddy shores of Wapping, over the low
cottages of Rotherhithe, and down the long Limehouse Reach
of the Thames, crowded with vessels of all descriptions.
There, within the walls of that world-renowned charity for
seamen, the British Admiralty might, with merit, place a
memorial tablet to William Kidd, as to one of the benefactors
of the hospital, with the simple inscription, taken from a
tomb in the great abbey, at the other end of the metropolis :
" Qualis erat, iste dies indicabit."
Kidd's imaginary exploits became the fruitful theme of sailors'
yarns, and a lurid ballad, sung to the then popular Whig air
of " Ye Jacobites by name give an ear, give an ear ! " was
long a favorite among them, its strains, sung in rather lively
measure, being often heard over the water of a summer night :
" I murdered William Moore
As I sailed, as I sailed.
I murdered William Moore
As I sailed.
I murdered William Moore,
And I left him iu his gore,
Not many leagues from shore,
As I sailed."
1 None of the members of Kidd's crew, who were tried and condemned to
death with him, were ever executed, as far as we are informed. It was probably
never designed that they should be. Statements have been made by certain
writers, without giving their authority, that the members of Kidd's crew, who
were tried with him were also executed, but the records of the trial, though men-
tioning the carrying out of the sentence in Kidd's case are silent as to the crew.
266 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Captain Kidd's widow married, in 1703, for her fourth hus-
band, Christopher Rousby, a man of considerable political
influence in the colony. Mrs. Kidd's property in New York
was confirmed to her by the English government ; and she
and her husband resided for a time in the old Bowery mansion
of Director Stuyvesant, whose farm they had leased. Mrs.
Sarah Rousby attained a great age, much of the latter part of
her life being spent in New Jersey. Her will, bearing date
November 1, 1732, was proved some twelve years later, at
which time she seems to have left four children surviving
her.
CHAPTER XIX
SERGEANT DANIEL LITSCHO AND HIS TAVERN — ANDRIES
JOCHEMSEN.— THE " OUTHOEK." — WALL STREET AND
THE PALISADES OF 1653. — TYMEN J AN SEN, THE SHIP
CARPENTER, AND HIS HOUSE
I bade her on her license look,
" Oh Sir," quoth she, " ye are mistook,
I have a lesson without book,
Most perfect ;
If I my license should observe,
And not in any point to swerve,
Both I and mine, alas ! should starve,
Not surfeit."
Ballad of " Robin Conscience."
NEXT in an easterly direction beyond the grounds of
Govert Loockermans, stood, upon the Shore Road,
in the year 1655, a building which appears to have been, as
early as 1645, in the possession of Dirck Volckertsen, one of
the oldest settlers ; was subsequently for a time the prop-
erty and probably the residence of Govert Loockermans, and
then became the tavern of Sergeant Daniel Litscho. As the
records of Litscho's transactions relating to his property at
this place are very imperfect, we have to glean our informa-
tion largely from detached references and other scraps of in-
formation, supplying something from conjecture. Daniel
Litscho or Letscho is supposed to have been a native of the
town of Cosslin in Pomerania, near the coast of the Baltic
Sea.1 He reached New Amsterdam at an early date, though
1 The name "Leko," with some slight variations, forms the appellation of
several villages near this town, and the sergeant's name may have been derived
from one of them, — not an unusual ca.se.
268 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the year is not known. Pomerania suffered severely, about
the year 1630, in the Thirty Years' War, as has already been
noticed {ante, page 225), and it is not unlikely that Litscho
may have quitted his country at that time. At any rate,
this house upon the Shore Road was in his occupation before
1648, in which year he was one of the twelve licensed tavern-
keepers of New Amsterdam. His tavern seems to have been
a good-sized building, for it is occasionally spoken of as " the
great house," though this is perhaps only in comparison with
a smaller one afterwards built to the east of it. It had at
least a quarter of an acre of ground attached to it, with a
frontage upon the river road of some seventy-five feet, and
back of its garden were a few apple-trees,1 which were called
its "orchard," and which about the time of our survey had
been the subject of great depredations by the vagrant goats
of the town, which were permitted to feed on the vacant " out-
hoek " of the Jan Damen farm, extending from this point to
the city " Wall," upon the north line of the present Wall
Street. The tavern seems to have stood a little distance back
from the line of the street, and its site is in good part occu-
pied by the present building No. 125 Pearl Street.2
Sergeant Daniel Litscho no longer kept tavern here at the
time of our survey in 1655. In the spring of 1651, he leased
the house to one Andries Jochemsen, who kept a tavern or
ale-house here for many years, and afterwards acquired the
property. Litscho, in a short time after the last-mentioned
date, appears to have exchanged his house and land at this
place with Claes Hendricks, a carpenter, for a somewhat
larger parcel of land owned by the latter, just outside of the
1 In a deed, supposed to be of this property, from Dirck Volckertsen to Govert
Aersen, in 1645, the vendor of the property reserves the right "to remove six
apple-trees."
2 The property seems in part to have belonged originally to the tract granted
to Tymen Jansen, and subsequently to have been controlled by Govert Loocker
mans. In 1644, this portion of the Tymen Jansen patent was apparently re-
granted by the Director and Council to Jan Damen. Dirck Volckertsen was the
husband of Damen's step-daughter, and, probably enough, had acquired an en-
largement of his ground from his father-in-law.
JOCHEMSEN'S TAVERN
269
gate of the palisades at Wall Street. There the sergeant
dwelt, and probably kept a tavern, at the time of our survey,
and for a short period thereafter, as will be noticed in proper
order.
As for Andries Jochemsen, he had the usual troubles of a
tavern-keeper with the Dutch authorities. He could not
resist the temptation of occasionally tapping on Sundays dur-
ing the hours of preaching, when some of the idle negroes or
other good-for-nothing vagabonds of the town found their
way into his tavern. Nor was he always particular to turn
away his customers at nine o'clock in the evening, as the
ordinances required. The schout often had to pay disciplinary
visits to Jochemsen's tavern, and these were greatly resented
by the tavern-keeper's huysvrouw, insomuch that the officer
reported to the burgomasters upon one occasion that after
having noted down Andries "for the fine,'' the wife of the
latter "called out after him : 4 Schout, I have something to say
to thee ; hast thou any soul or conscience ? Dost thou expect
to go to heaven ? ' — and more such like words, so that if he
were as willing as she, there would have been a street uproar."
These pointed inquiries, so disconcerting to a New York
official, even at that early day, were however denied by An-
dries. His recollection was that the remark made to the
schout was merely : " Thou hast a conscience, which is not
worth much," or, " which is somewhat large."
Claes Hendricksen, the carpenter, seems to have built a
house upon the easterly side of the plot of ground he had ac-
quired from Sergeant Litscho, and an earlier building doubt-
less stood there also, for in subsequent transfers of the
premises they are said to contain two houses, one of which was
a small one and appears to have been afterwards removed.
About the time of our survey these buildings passed through
several hands in quick succession, possibly under the fore-
closure of a mortgage upon them. They were held in 1655
by Arent van Curler, and do not seem to have been regularly
tenanted. Finally they were sold in 1659 to one Jan Lour-
ensen, who resided here for many years. At the period of our
270 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
survey, these were the last houses along the shore within the
town palisades at Wall Street, but within a year or two later,
Sergeant Litscho, whose house outside the gate had been con-
demned by the authorities as standing too near the fortifica-
tions, returned to this spot, and built upon some land he had
recently purchased upon the Daraen " outhoek." His house
joined immediately to that of Jan Lourensen upon the east,
and here he, and after his death in 1662 his wife Anneken,
kept a tavern for a long period, she being well known in the
later English times as " Mother Daniels." 1 This tavern was
a prominent one, and derived not a little importance from the
fact that it was a sort of fire station for the eastern part of the
town, — a dozen fire-buckets having been ordered in 1659 to
be kept here for use in cases of emergency.
This, however, was after the time of our survey. In 1655,
all the space from Arent van Curler's houses (or from about
the present building, No. 129 Pearl Street) to the earthwork
and palisades, which ran along the northerly line of the
present Wall Street, — being a distance of about two hundred
and seventy-five feet, — was waste ground, where goats
browsed, and where dandelions starred the sod in spring, as
they do now in many a similar neglected spot in the outskirts
of the city.
The land lying along the river road, or the modern Pearl
Street, and extending from a short distance east of the present
Hanover Street to Maiden Lane, had been granted by the
1 Under the Dutch system of names, by which her own appeared as Anneke
Danielse. This lady, like many of her neighbors, had seen a good deal of the
world. She was the daughter of one Claas Croesens, and had in her earlier life
married Jan Jansen Swaartveger, who is supposed to have been in the military
service of the West India Company. She accompanied her husband to Brazil,
and there, at the Castle of Rio Grande, her son, Harmauus Jansen, was born, about
the year 1643. Her first husband having died, we find her about the year 1647
married to Sergeant Litscho, by whom she had one daughter, Anna. Her son
Harmanus is said in 1662 to be living in New Amsterdam, engaged in the study
of medicine and surgery. Her daughter Anna married William Bartre or Pear-
tree, sometimes spoken of as " Colonel," and Frances, the daughter of the latter,
who married William Smith, a merchant, was the mother of William Peartree
Smith, prominent in the Colonial days of New York.
THE OUTHOEK
271
Director and Council, at a very early date, to two or three in-
dividuals, who had built upon and otherwise improved their
holdings. Among these proprietors was Tymen Jansen, master
ship carpenter for the West India Company, who in 1643 re-
ceived a grant for a parcel upon which he must have previ-
ously resided for a number of years, and which seems to have
stretched along the river road, about from the present No. 125
Pearl Street to what is now the rear of the Seaman's Savings
Bank building at the northwest corner of Pearl and Wall
streets, — a distance of about four hundred and fifty feet. In
depth this plot of ground averaged almost two hundred and
twenty-five feet, so that its area amounted to more than two
acres. Tymen Jansen died in, or soon after, the year 1644 :
previously, however, he appears to have sold, or to have
agreed to sell to Jan Jansen Damen, whose farm adjoined him
upon the west, the bulk of his holding, being almost two acres
in area, and lying nearest the town ; it was separated from the
reserved portion of his plot by a lane lying just north of the
present Wall Street ; 1 the portion thus sold to Damen was
situated somewhat southeast of Jan Damen's farm, which it
touched at one corner, — scarcely more than enough to afford
passage from one parcel of ground to the other. This was
granted to Jan Damen, and from its shape and situation be-
came known as the uouthoek " of his farm. When, in 1653,
the palisades were constructed along what is now the northern
line of Wall Street, this 44 outhoek " became entirely separated
from the body of the farm ; and in the spring of the next year,
1 654, the heirs of Jan Damen 2 sold this parcel of ground for
1 This lane led into the ancient Schaape Weytie, or Sheep Pasture, and by
various turnings appears to have communicated with the Slyck Steegh, or Mill
Lane. There are indications that it formed a very ancient road or perhaps wood
path, in use before the road was laid out along the river-bank, and which perhaps
ran still farther along the low slopes of the upland into the old lane forming the
present Gold Street (with which it was in line), and so into Van Tienhoven's lane
and out to the Second Common Pasture, or present City Hall Park. That por-
tion of the lane more especially referred to in the text seems to have been swal-
lowed up by the ditch constructed in 1653 on the north side of the town palisades.
2 Strictly speaking, the heirs of Jan Damen's deceased wife, Arientje. She
had acquired the property from her husband by survivorship, and upon her death,
soon after his own, it passed to her children by a former husband.
272 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
" a thousand pieces of green plank," to Jacob Flodder, of Fort
Orange, or Albany. Flodder appears to have bought the
ground for speculative purposes ; and in the summer of 1656,
after some delay in getting his deed for the premises, he sold
a part of it, probably at auction, in six parcels, to as many dif-
ferent individuals. These seem, in their turn, to have bought
"for a rise," for, with the exception of Daniel Litscho, who
built upon his plot at the westerly end of the " outhoek," as
previously mentioned, the rest of the purchasers appear to
have allowed their lots to remain unimproved for a number
of years.
To the stroller, passing up Pearl Street, it is somewhat
difficult to realize, as Wall Street with its hurrying, jostling
throng, opens before him, that here, about two centuries and
a half ago, little was to be seen except a rather forlorn earth-
work of sods, four or five feet in height, above which showed
a perhaps equal height of roughly hewn and pointed "pali-
sades," formed of the trunks of small trees six inches or
thereabouts in diameter. At the foot of the earthwork was
an open space along which the burgher militia companies
occasionally drilled, and sentries paced now and then at periods
of alarm, but which at other times lay solitary and waste.
This line of defence, occupying the northerly side of Wall
Street, stretched (as originally laid out) straight across the
island, from the East River to the North River, passing over
the site of the present Trinity Church. On the further side,
lay its trench, " four or five feet in depth, and ten or eleven
broad, somewhat sloping," — using the not very precise lan-
guage of the order of its construction. This order of the
Council bears date the 20th of April, 1653. The details
of the construction of this line of defence, given by Mr. D. T.
Valentine,1 evidently refer to merely preliminary and ten-
tative plans under discussion by the Director and Council.2
1 In Manual N. Y. Com. Council, 1862, p. 520.
2 One of these plans provided for a curtain of planks four inches thick, instead
of the palisades, and these seem to have been afterwards added or substituted,
THE PALISADES OF 1653 273
The work was intended, of course, only as a defence against
an attack by land from an enemy without artillery, — either
from the Indians or from the New England colonists, with
the latter of whom trouble was anticipated about this time.
No mention is made in the original proceedings, of the con-
struction of bastions along the line of defence, but in " The
Duke's Plan," so called, of the town as it was in the year
1661, we find that five small "flat" bastions, of a semi-ellip-
tical form, had by that time been constructed along the
works. These merely projected far enough from the curtain,
or main line, to allow a couple of guns to be mounted upon
each of them ; they were, in all probability, constructed with-
in a year or two after the original works, and their positions
are quite closely defined. Proceeding from the east toward
the North River, the first of these bastions was situated just
about opposite the head of the present Hanover Street; the
second was a few feet west of the present William Street,
being located about at the spot where now stands the en-
trance to the Bank of America ; the third occupied the south-
west part of the Sub-Treasury Building, at the corner of Wall
and Nassau streets ; the fourth was a few feet east of Broad-
way, being nearly upon the site of the building No. 4 Wall
Street ; and the fifth stood at the rear of the present Trinity
Church. Through these defences, two narrow gates gave ac-
cess to the town, — the so-called " Land Poort " at the present
Broadway, and the " Water Poort " at the river road, or pres-
ent Pearl Street.
About the period of the surrender to the English, in 1664,
several changes were made in the " fortifications ; " and the
bastions, which had been somewhat too close together, were
demolished, with the exception of the second and the fifth
and to have been probably furnished upon contract by the heirs of the Damen
farm from the " thousand pieces of green plank " for which they sold the
"outhoek" to Jacob Flodder, in 1654, as previously stated in the text. That the
palisades were originally used, is shown, however, by a report made to the Council
in 1655 that " about 65 of the new palisades have been chopped down, and used
for fire-wood," — some of the suburban residents evidently having possessed the
same traits in the seventeenth century as at the present day.
18
274 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
of those above noted, — if, indeed, the fifth was not rather
rebuilt at this time, at a point nearer Broadway than before.
In 1673-74, at the time of the recapture of the town by the
Dutch, Governor Colve effected considerable further changes
in these works. A general clearance of buildings and ob-
structions in their vicinity took place, in the course of which
several interesting landmarks were demolished. That portion
of the fortification west of Broadway was entirely rebuilt
upon new lines, being turned to the south, towards the pres-
ent Rector Street, in such a manner as to cover its exposed
flank, in the direction of the North River; the site of the
present Trinity Church was now left entirely outside of the
works.
The second bastion, above spoken of, near the present
William Street, was now considerably enlarged, and a new
one was constructed just east of Broadway: these received
names, according to the custom of the Dutch, and were
known as " Hollandia " and " Zeelandia." The gate at
Broadway was closed, and a new one was constructed at the
head of Broad Street, where it was commanded by both the
bastions; the road thence turned along the trench, and in
front of the westerly bastion into Broadway. A gate, or at
least an opening, at Broadway seems to have been restored
within a few years, in compliance with a public demand, but
the gate at Broad Street appears to have remained in use till
the final destruction of the works about the end of the seven-
teenth century.1
An observer, standing at the narrow " Water Poort," look-
ing northwards, in the year 1655, saw before him the ditch
of the town u fortification ; " upon its south bank the line of
palisades nine feet high, and upon its north bank the fence
of the Damen farm, formed a vista extending straight up the
hill, towards the North River. Over the ditch a rough bridge
was probably thrown, at the gate, and through it ran a small
rill collected from springs at the foot of the hillside pasture
1 In IG74 an order of council was made for the construction of "a little
gate " at Smits Vly, for a foot passage.
TYMEN JANSEN
275
known as the Claaver Weytie of the Damen farm. Over this
streamlet, and upon the east side of the road or present Pearl
Street, a score and more of years after the time of our survey,
the butchers of the town 1 erected slaughter-houses, much as
the poulterers of London, centuries ago, built their scalding-
house over the somewhat similarly situated stream called the
Wallbrook. These slaughter-houses, and the pens for cattle
which were situated opposite them, were long conspicuous
features in this part of the town : at the period of our survey,
however, neither the slaughter-houses nor the cattle-pens
existed. In place of the latter, there stood near the bank of
the trench of the palisades, and in inconveniently close prox-
imity to the gate of the town, the house built more than
twenty years before, by Director-General Van Twiller, for
Tymen Jansen, the master ship-carpenter at New Amsterdam
for the West India Company.
Of Tymen Jansen's antecedents but little appears in the
early records. He was born about the year 1603, and came to
New Amsterdam a young man, for he was in the employ of
the Company before 1633. He was a busy man in his occu-
pation, and during Director Van Twiller's term of office, from
1633 to 1638, he is said, in a report soon after the latter date,
to have " made many repairs, and built new vessels, with a
wood-cutters' boat, and various farm boats and skiffs," so that
the shore opposite his house, and near the foot of the present
Wall Street, must have been the scene of considerable activity
in these first ship-building operations of New York. To the
house was attached almost half an acre of ground.2 The
building must have stood very nearly upon the spot now (1901)
occupied by a stationer's shop under the Seaman's Savings
Bank, but projecting somewhat out into the present Pearl
Street, the road at this place appearing to have originally
curved to the eastward a little more than do the lines of Pearl
Street ; the straightening, doubtless, took place at the time of
building the gate in the palisades, in 1653. Here Tymen
1 Prominent among whom were Thomas Robinson and James Burne.
2 His original plot, as above stated, contained somewhat more than two acres.
276 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Jansen lived for some ten or twelve years with his wife,
Marritie, and his little daughter Elsie, of whose troubled life
in after years, as the wife of Jacob Leisler, mention has already
been made.1 Jansen seems to have prospered, and in 1642
and 1643 he received grants of a considerable tract of land
upon Long Island, covering the site of the present court-house
of Queens County and its vicinity, in Long Island City.
Whether he had grown independent with years, and was
desirous of attending to his own private affairs, or whether he
was not in as high favor with Director Kieft as with his pre-
decessor, does not appear; but we find that in 1644 the Direc-
tor and Council complained of him for neglecting to repair
the yachts " Amsterdam " and " Prins Willem," to which
he responded, somewhat tartly, that " he has done his best,
and cannot know when a vessel is leaky unless those in charge
inform him of the fact; furthermore, that nothing can be done
without means." Jansen, however, like many other pioneers
of the colonies of America, was not fated to attain old age ;
he died before the year 1646, and in that year his widow mar-
ried Dirck Cornelissen, of Wensveen, a carpenter by trade,
who was probably the son of Cornelis Leendertsen, the former
business associate of Govert Loockermans.2
Dirck Cornelissen dying in the year 1648, in the following
year his widow married Govert Loockermans, as previously
mentioned (ante, page 241), and removed to the house of the
latter at the present Hanover Square. Some time afterwards
Loockermans and his wife sold the shipwright's former house
to one Claes Hendricksen, and he, in his turn, seems to have
exchanged the property, about the beginning of 1653, with
Sergeant Daniel Litscho, for his house and ground situated
1 See ante, pages 242, 245.
2 Dirck Cornelissen seems to have been something of a practical joker. In
1643, Tomas Broen, a corporal of the garrison, complained to the Council that
while he was on duty, Dirck Cornelissen, carpenter (evidently on the score of
some alleged claim against the West India Company), " took off his (Broen's)
hat, saying : ' Thou art the Company's servant ; I '11 pledge the hat for drink,'
taking it away with him, and he hath nailed it on a post in front of his house,
putting a stone in the hat."
TYMEN JANSEN'S HOUSE
277
some distance nearer the fort. (See ante, page 268.) The
sergeant probably built upon a portion of the ground imme-
diately east of the old house, and about at the rear of the
present Seaman's Savings Bank building, and he seems to have
kept his tavern here for several years.
In the mean time, an agreement had apparently been made
by Claes Hendricksen, for the sale of the original house to
Tryntje Scheerenborg, the widow of Hendrick Jansen, the
tailor (whose difficulties with Director Kieft have already
come under our notice,1 and who was drowned in the wreck of
the u Princess " ) ; she had paid a part of the purchase price,
but had died without having received any deed of the prop-
erty. She left two daughters, one of whom was married to
Isaac Kip, a young man, the son of Hendrick Kip, the tailor ;
the other daughter was the wife of Gillis Pietersen, from Gouda,
who was an old employe* of the West India Company, having
been " master house-carpenter " for that corporation as early
as 1638. In the early part of the year 1653, these parties had
been exceedingly anxious to have their deed of the house pur-
chased by their deceased mother-in-law ; in fact, they brought
a suit against Claes Hendricksen to compel him to furnish
them with a deed, but the court held that they must look to
Sergeant Litscho for that assurance.
In the mean time, the " palisades " and the town gate had
been built, in inconvenient proximity to this house; and
when, a short time afterwards, Sergeant Litscho offered a deed
to Kip and Pietersen, and called upon them for the balance of
the purchase-money remaining due upon the property, they
refused to pay because of the recent encroachments by the
authorities. To appease them, the burgomasters visited the
spot, and after viewing the obstructions, ordered a small guard-
house, which had been built outside the gate, to be removed.
The house of Kip and Pietersen remained for three or four
years blocking up the way ; in 1656 the burgomasters were
obliged to serve upon them an official notice : " Whereas, the
fence of your garden by the Town Gate is standing too near
1 See ante, page 229.
278 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the Town Waal, you are therefore ordered to take in your
fence, so that wagons and horses can conveniently pass." 1
Finally, to get rid of the inconvenience arising from the prox-
imity of this house to the gate, the burgomasters decided to
condemn and to demolish the building, which was done in June,
1657, the owners being awarded five hundred and fifty guilders,
or two hundred and twenty dollars for their property. At
about the same time, the adjacent tavern of Sergeant Litscho
seems also to have been removed, though the records do not
show the amount of his award.
1 This order of the burgomasters bears date October 7, 1656. The "Waal"
referred to is not the line of palisades, but tbe protection to the shore, by sheet
piling or otherwise. Mr. Valentine has made the mistake of constantly confound-
ing the two.
Plan of New Amsterdam
from the Palisades to the "Ferry
A.D. 1655
Compiled from the Dutch
English Records by
.7. //. INNES
P <? Q <P
? <? Q-V
p 9 9 C
9 <? Q 9
9 P O <
P ^ p. <
i
7/
CHAPTER XX
THE SMITS VLY. — HENDRICK J AN SEN'S GRANT. — AUGUS-
TYN HEERMANS AND HIS HOUSE. — MARYN ADRIAENSEN
AND HIS ATTACK ON DIRECTOR KIEFT
PROCEEDING outwards from the town, we have now
reached the district long known as the Smits Vly.
This was a tract of low-lying land between the river shore
and the foot of the hills forming the body of the island; it
stretched along the river from near Wall Street about to the
present Beekman Street, a distance of a quarter of a mile,
and varied in width from about one hundred and fifty to two
hundred and fifty feet. Though doubtless full of springs, it
does not seem to have been sufficiently wet to deter improve-
ment, for portions of it were built upon at a very early date.
The term "vly," as used in this connection, does not exactly
correspond either with the English "valley," or "meadow;"
the Dutch appellation would be perhaps more accurately
rendered as "the Smith's Flats." As to the origin of the
name, nothing is accurately known. Mr. D. T. Valentine,
and a host of others following him, have stated that the place
received its name from Cornells Clopper, a blacksmith who
in 1660 acquired a parcel of ground at the northwest corner
of Maiden Lane and Pearl Street; but a more careful exam-
ination would have shown them that the locality is spoken of
by the same name nearly twenty years before that date, — as
early as 1641.
The land along the East River, from Tymen Jansen's
garden, as far as Maiden Lane, seems to have been originally
acquired by Hendrick Jansen, the tailor, Director-General
280 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Kieft's antagonist.1 He was certainly located there as early
as 1639, and had apparently about two acres of ground under
cultivation. His house, according to the results of a careful
collation of many deeds and other historical material, seems
to have stood very near Maagde Paetje, or Maiden Lane,
and to have occupied in part the site of the present building,
No. 195 Pearl Street. In the Seutter View (so-called) of
New Amsterdam, or New York, and in two or three others
which are substantially the same view, though bearing dif-
ferent names, we have a representation, as of about the year
1667, of the buildings along the East River shore, from the
present Wall Street to Maiden Lane. These buildings were
isolated, and plainly in the sight of the draughtsman, and
are not open to the same imputations of inaccuracy as are
several other portions of these views. From the views, the
Hendrick J ansen house appears to have been a small building
of the usual Dutch farmhouse type. Like most of such
buildings, outside of the more thickly settled districts, it
stood with its broadside to the street, towards which its
thatched roof sloped.2
In August, 1641, Jansen sold a part of his property here,
being his "house, barn, barrack, and arable land," for 2500
guilders, or about $1000, to a man who afterwards took a
prominent though brief part in the history of the Colony, —
Maryn Adriaensen. Upon the premises there seems to have
been the quite common appurtenance of a small brew-house,
and this, with its apparatus, Jansen retained, agreeing to
remove the same, — which he probably did to the western
portion of his original plot, where he seems to have built a
new house for himself; but this, too, in November, 1642, he
sold to one Willem Adriaensen, describing the property then
as his "garden, dwelling, and brew-house."
1 See ante, page 229, etc.
2 Just adjoining this house, at the corner of Maiden Lane, there stood, as
shown upon the view, another huilding with its gable end towards Pearl Street.
This was a house which had been very recently built, upon a narrow lot running
along the side of Maiden Lane ; the lot had been acquired in 1666 by Pieter
Jansen, a ship carpenter. At the time of our survey, however, this space was
not occupied by any building.
AUGUSTYN HEERMANS
281
Upon this latter sale, which was for an equal consideration
with that of the former parcel, — namely, 2500 Carolus guil-
ders, — it was stipulated with great care " that 2-1 guilders for
drink on the bargain shall be contributed by the seller alone
without charging any part to the purchasers. " This appro-
priation of 24 guilders, or nearly $10, for "drink on the
bargain," — being about one per cent on the purchase price
of the property, — shows that the sale of a piece of New
Amsterdam real estate was considered, in the middle of the
seventeenth century, to be an occasion of great dignity and
importance.
Of Willem Adriaensen, the purchaser of this property, we
have but little information ; he is said to have been a cooper
by trade, and to have had lands upon Long Island. When,
or in what manner he parted with his property here in the
Smits Vly we do not know ; but within six or seven years
after Willem Adriaensen's purchase, we find the premises in
the possession of one of the most interesting characters of
New Amsterdam, — of Augustyn Heermans, soldier, scholar,
artist, merchant, land-surveyor, speculator, and manorial
proprietor.1 Heermans was a native of Bohemia, and was
born about the year 1608, in the city of Prague, where his
father, Ephraim Augustyn Heermans, was one of the members
of the city council. In the old Bohemian capital, surrounded
by vine-clad hills, life passed uneventfully enough, no doubt,
for the young Augustyn, till he was about ten years of age,
— then, the memorable year 1618 came on, and during the
next fifteen years he must have witnessed many of the most
stirring events of the great epoch known as the Thirty Years'
War, of which Prague was the very cradle. As a bright,
adventure -loving boy, he must have gazed with a lively
curiosity upon the historic window in the old palace of
Prague, from which, in the year named, the German Em-
1 Many interesting facts respecting Augustyn Heermans have been brought
out recently in a paper, written for the Maryland Historical Society by General
James G. Wilson, upon Heermans' " Manor of Bohemia," in Maryland. From it
several of the particulars given in the text are drawn.
282 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
peror's commissioners and their secretary were thrown into
the castle-trench by the enraged Protestant deputies of the
estates of Bohemia, and upon the heap of litter which won-
derfully enabled them to escape death in their eighty feet
fall. Soon afterwards he must have seen the streets of the
capital filled with troops from all parts of Bohemia, now
urged irrevocably into rebellion against their Austrian,
Roman Catholic ruler Matthias, the head of the German
Empire; a little later, perhaps, he may have watched them
march through the Horse Market and Gate, and into the
Vienna Road, under their bold leader, Count Thurn, to
besiege the emperor in his capital itself.
So, too, he must have seen Prague ablaze with enthusiasm
and with gayety over the coronation of the king whom the
Bohemian estates had chosen, Frederic, Count Palatine of
the Rhine, and of his queen, the beautiful Princess Elizabeth
of England. Then came a change ; on the afternoon of the
8th of November, 1620, all Prague was shaken by the
thunder of the cannon from the White Mountain, three
miles west of the city, where eighty thousand men were
engaged in combat. Among the spectators who crowded
the house-tops and the walls, may well have been the young
Heermans, who from thence could have seen the Bohemian
army melt away, in the course of an hour or so, before the
troops of the emperor, leaving the mountain-sides and plateau
black with the bodies of more than four thousand slain.
Dark days followed in Prague; the short-reigned king,
Frederic, and his household fled by night; the city was sur-
rendered to the emperor without opposition; a few months
of inaction were allowed to supervene, in order to draw back
to Prague the escaped Protestant leaders ; then the net was
sprung, and the boy Heermans could hear the death-bell
tolling daily for executions of the condemned rebels ; while
the famous Karlsbriicke over the Moldau, so captivating to
a boy of twelve or thirteen, where the river lay with its lake-
like waters and green, willowed islands, was now a place
to be shunned, — for above it was fixed a long row of the
Augustine Heermaxs.
From the portrait by himself on his :< Map of Maryland," British Museum.
COUNT WALLENSTEIN
283
mouldering heads of the principal men of Prague and of
Bohemia. If Augustyn Heermans' family did not itself
suffer at this time, it must have been fortunate, for it
belonged undoubtedly to the Protestant faction, which had
been previously strong in Prague. However this may have
been, the victorious Romanist party carried matters with a
hard hand, and times grew worse and worse for the van-
quished Protestants, till in 1627 they were given the last
alternative of either abandoning their religion or their
country.
During these gloomy times, young Augustyn Heermans,
now growing up to manhood, must have often seen in the
streets of Prague a tall, thin man with stubby red hair and
small sparkling eyes, and with a stern and somewhat ab-
stracted air, for whom people already made way with a
respectful awe. This person was Count Albert von Wal-
lenstein,1 known then as a man of consummate military
abilities, who was high in favor with the Emperor, and who
had been enriched with scores of the confiscated estates of
the Bohemian nobles. His princely ostentation, leadership
of huge armies, and his vast and obscure designs, which
alarmed the German court, and which led alike to Wallen-
stein's tragical end and to his enshrinement in Romance and
in Poetry, were yet in the future.
It was about in the year 1625 that Wallenstein disclosed
his design of forming a great army for the service of the
harassed emperor, whose rebellious Protestant states were
now assisted by various foreign countries; this army was
to be raised and partly maintained at Wallenstein's own
expense, but principally by exactions upon the Protestant
territories. The plan was soon afterwards carried into effect;
and among those who entered the service of the great leader
was Augustyn Heermans. Whether necessity led to his thus
entering a service which in some respects is not likely to
have been congenial to him we cannot tell. He is said to
1 More strictly Waldstein ; the other appellation has been appropriated, how-
ever, by history and by poetry.
284 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
have served in Wallenstein's army through several cam-
paigns, and was present at that general's defeat by the
Swedes, in November, 1632, at the battle of Lutzen, in
which the head of the Protestant cause, the great Gustavus
Adolphus, King of Sweden, lost his life.
It was perhaps during the temporary breaking up of
Wallenstein's army after the battle of Lutzen, that Heer-
mans found an opportunity of leaving the service and of
coming to America. He is said to have come over as the
clerk, or agent of the firm of Gabry and Sons, merchants at
Amsterdam,1 and was certainly for many years their factor
at New Amsterdam. Though he had grown up in a dis-
tracted period, he seems to have been a man of considerable
attainments, and is said, in addition to his own Bohemian, to
have had some acquaintance with the Latin, German, Eng-
lish, Dutch, French, and Spanish languages, — one or two
of these, indeed, he may have picked up in Wallenstein's
polyglot army.
Soon after Heermans' arrival in New Netherland, and in
the course of the year 1633, he seems to have been despatched
to the Dutch settlements on the South, or Delaware River,
and while there he was present and a witness, at the purchase
by one Arent Coersen from the Indians of a tract of land near
the mouth of the Schuylkill River, which land is supposed to
have extended very near to, if it did not actually include, the
site of the present city of Philadelphia. Augustyn Heermans
now, for a number of years, appears to have remained quietly
at New Amsterdam, attending to the mercantile concerns of
his principals. Probably before the year 1651 he had built
a large brick storehouse upon Pearl Street between the old
church and the fort. This, in its day, was one of the most
substantial buildings in the town ; 2 it occupied a site, upon
which there is reason to believe had previously stood, for a
number of years, a smaller storehouse of the Gabrys ; and the
1 See additional particulars respecting Heermans, ante, page 53, etc.
2 Its value was appraised in 1653 as 8500 guilders, or 3400 dollars of the
present currency.
HEERMANS AT NEW AMSTERDAM
285
larger building appears to have been only held in trust for
that firm by Heermans. A short time before this period,
or about in the year 1647, Heermans had acquired a plot of
something over an acre of ground, lying just north of Burger
Jorissen's land in Hanover Square; it was an interior parcel,
to which access was had through the narrow lane called the
"Slyck Steegh," previously described.1 It was leased and
used for garden purposes for many years by Allard Anthony,
but after the opening of Smith (or the present William)
Street, which intersected it, it was sold off in lots by Heer-
mans about the year 1660.
In the mean time, prior to 1649, Heermans had become
possessed in some uncertain way, as above stated, of the
western portion of the land of Hendrick Jansen, the tailor,
in the Smits Vly, and of the house built by the latter thereon,
about the years 1641-42, and which he had sold to Willem
Adriaensen. This property contained about two hundred feet
frontage along the river, and was something over that dis-
tance in depth, so that it comprised about an acre of ground ;
its rear portion was occupied by the orchard which Hendrick
Jansen had planted, which extended back as far as the slopes
of Jan Damen's hillside pasture, known as the Claaver
Weytie, or the Clover Field.2
Not being a man of family at this time, it is possible that
Heermans did not as yet occupy the place in Smits Vly
himself, though, like many others in the settlement, he may
have had a slave establishment.3 Heermans was, in fact, a
man of more than forty years of age when, in December,
1650, he married Janneken Verlett, of Utrecht in the Nether-
lands ; she is supposed to have been the daughter of Nicolaes
1 See ante, page 152.
2 The Claaver Weytie extended about to the present William Street
westerly. As for the land of Heermans here, it was bisected by the present
Pine (then called Tienhoven or King's Street) many years after our survey, —
about in the year 1689.
8 A well-known negro about the town known as Jan Augustinus, or " Augus-
tyn's John," may quite possibly have been a freedman of Augustyn Heermans.
286 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Verlett, a widower, who afterwards married Madame Anna
Bayard, Director Stuyvesant's widowed sister.
After his marriage, Augustyn Heermans' residence was
undoubtedly at the house in the Smits Vly; in the course
of the next few years he seems to have built a larger house
upon the west side of the original one; and the two build-
ings are shown, standing gable end to the road in the Seutter
View; they would appear to have stood a short distance
back from the highway. What Heermans calls his "great
house " must have occupied a good portion of the site of the
present warehouse, No. 175 Pearl Street, while the older
structure stood partly upon the site of the building, No. 177,
and partly upon that of No. 179.
Here Augustyn Heermans spent the last ten or twelve
years of his residence in New Amsterdam. Fronted by the
shingly beach of the East River, and backed by its orchard
and the hillside, the place was a quiet haven where its pro-
prietor often, no doubt, found opportunities to contrast the
prevailing calm with the turbulent experiences of his early
life. All traces of the locality as it was in Heermans' day
have long passed away, however; and he must live largely in
imagination who can find in the dark street and melancholy
warehouses, and clattering trains of the elevated railway
overhead, anything to remind him that here Augustyn Heer-
mans, awakened on a summer morning by the carolling of
the robins in his orchard, could look from his windows upon
the early mist covering the East River, and call to mind,
perhaps, a foggy morning, a quarter of a century before,
when he with twenty thousand of his comrades stood under
arms, and through the mists which covered the village and
plain of Lutzen, on the day of the great battle, heard the
Saxon troops of Gustavus Adolphus singing: —
" Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Ein gute Welir und Waffen."
Augustyn Heermans' political experiences in New Amster-
dam were not, however, entirely tranquil. In 1649 he had
HEERMANS AND TIENHOVEN 287
joined in the opposition to the colonial policy of the West
India Company; and as one of "the Nine Men," so-called,
his name headed the signers of the historic document known
as the " Vertoogh," or " Remonstrance," to the States-Gen-
eral, prepared by Adriaen van der Donck in that year. In this
paper, Stuyvesant and his secretary, Van Tienhoven, were
handled without gloves, and its signers had plenty of trouble
to look for from their malicious adversaries in the colonial
government; most of them got it, too, and Heermans was
placed under arrest by the Director-General for refusing to
produce documents which had circulated amongst him and
his associates. Between Heermans and Van Tienhoven, too,
there was but little love lost: "That infernal swaggerer
Tienhoven," Heermans writes, in September, 1651, to
Adriaen van der Donck, "has returned here, and put the
country in a blaze." Van Tienhoven, as there is every
reason to believe, had also lighted a small private fire of his
own against Augustyn Heermans, for he had scarcely
returned from the Netherlands, when the merchants John
and Charles Gabry at Amsterdam presented a petition to
the States-General, praying that Augustyn Heermans, their
factor at New Amsterdam, might be ordered to render to
them an account of his transactions there. Van Tienhoven's
insinuations, however, if such there had been, do not seem
to have produced any very permanent effect, for we find that
the connection between the Gabrys and their factor continued
apparently for many years longer.
About this same time, too, in the year 1652, Heermans
appears to have been made the victim of a despicable trick
in which the Secretary's hand is more apparent. Heermans,
and a companion, being upon the point of making a journey
to New England, in the spring of that year, were, it seems,
approached by George Baxter, ensign of the garrison, who
gave them a letter to be delivered to Governor William
Coddington, of Rhode Island. This letter, apparently by
some prearrangement, was taken from the travellers in
Rhode Island, and was opened before the General Court, or
288 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Assembly, when it was found to contain an offer purporting
to come from Director-General Stuyvesant, to send Governor
Coddington some soldiers to be employed against the inhab-
itants of Rhode Island. The irritated Rhode Islanders
immediately placed Heermans and his companion under
arrest for a treasonable conspiracy against their government.
They were held to bail in the sum of 100 pounds sterling till
they should prove their innocence ; and it was only with the
greatest difficulty that they succeeded in procuring a certifi-
cate from the Council at New Amsterdam of their ignorance
of the contents of the letter.
The difficulties between Heermans and the colonial ad-
ministration seem to have been smoothed over, for a time
at least, and in 1659 we find Director-General Stuyvesant
sending Heermans and one Resolved Waldron, as a deputa-
tion to visit the Governor of Maryland, in order to establish,
if possible, an agreement respecting the boundaries of that
colony, and those of the Dutch settlements along the Dela-
ware; the appointment may, indeed, have been somewhat
ungraciously given by the Director-General, and may have
been largely owing to the fact that Heermans' linguistic and
general business talents, together with an acquaintance with
the science of land-surveying which he possessed, rendered
him perhaps the most fit person in the Colony for this
business.1
1 As Heermans must have been quite young when he entered the military
service of Wallenstein, and as there seems to be no reason for supposing that he
was engaged in the pursuit of land-surveying at any time in New Netherland,
there is perhaps reason to conjecture that he may have been attached to the
engineer corps of Wallenstein's army. That he possessed some artistic talents,
and that he was the draughtsman of the valuable view of New Amsterdam, of
about the year 1651 or 1652, which has been already spoken of as the " Visscher
View," and which in a less finished form is to be found in the second edition of
his friend Adriaen van der Donck's " Beschrijving van Nieuw Nederland," is
reasonably well known. It is a curious fact in this connection that Wenceslas
Hollar, the great artist and topographical illustrator of London, whose sketches
are now of such value, and who was a contemporary of Augustyn Heermans,
was likewise a native of Prague in Bohemia, and, like Heermans, he seems to
have always retained much pride in the place of his nativity. In his views of
" London before and after the Great Fire "of 1666, in the writer's possession,
HEERMANS' SURVEY OF MARYLAND 289
Heermans' journal of this expedition is still extant,1 and
describes with considerable minuteness the progress of the
commissioners with their party of soldiers and guides. They
travelled on foot and by canoe through the forests for several
days, and at Patuxent, in the Maryland district, they had an
interview of several days with Governor Fendall, of the
Colony, and with Philip Calvert, son of Lord Baltimore, the
proprietor, who was then Secretary of the province, and who
afterwards succeeded his father in the title and in the pro-
prietorship of* the Colony. From this point Heermans sailed
down the Chesapeake Bay, and had an interview with the
Governor of Virginia, and upon his return from the latter
province he again stopped for a season in Maryland. In his
journey through the forests between the Delaware and the
Susquehanna rivers, he had received a favorable impression
of the country; and now learning that the proprietor of
Maryland was laboring under many disadvantages from the
want of an accurate map of his territories, Heermans placed
himself in communication with Lord Baltimore, offering to
make a survey and map of the entire province, in considera-
tion of a manorial grant to himself. This proposition was
accepted by Lord Baltimore, and Heermans soon entered
upon the work of his survey, which occupied him for about
ten years.2 For this work he received a grant of about thirty
thousand acres in the present Cecil County, Maryland, and
in its vicinity. To this tract, part of which he named the
"Manor of Nova Bohemia," he appears to have removed his
household from New Amsterdam about the year 1662, in
which year, on the 19th of June, he received his first patent
from Lord Baltimore.3 Here, upon a stream which he called
these sketches, wonderful in their mastery of topographical details, and executed
at a period when for twenty years of his life the artist had been engaged upou
English subjects, appear as of " W. Hollar, of Prague, Bohemia."
1 See same in Vol. II., N. Y. Colonial Documents.
2 His large map of Maryland was published by Faithorne at London, about
1670; a copy is preserved in the British Museum. It is spoken of in the highest
terms by contemporaries.
3 General Wilson, in his historical sketch, says that Heermans removed from
19
290 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the Bohemia River, near the head of Chesapeake Bay, Heer-
mans erected his manor house, and here for many years he
continued to reside upon his estate with considerable dignity.
" He was the most important personage in that part of the
Colony," says General Wilson, in the paper to which refer-
ence has been made, "driving in his coach and four, with
liveried servants; and with a large deer park, the walls of
which are still (1889) standing. His estate abounded in
game, and both he and his sons were fond of shooting and of
fox-hunting." He and all his family were naturalized as
English subjects about 1666, and from time to time during
the remainder of his life he was engaged in considerable
public business, and is said to have held correspondence with
many of the most conspicuous men of that period of colonial
history.
Heermans died in 1686: "his monumental stone," says
General Wilson, " is still to be seen on his manor. ... It
contains the following inscription : —
AUGUSTINE HERMAN, BOHEMIAN,
THE FIRST FOUNDER &
SEATER OF BOHEMIA MANOR
ANNO 1661."
The name became extinct in 1739, but it is understood that
the female line still continues. The old Bohemia Manor
House was burned in 1815, and with it are said to have been
destroyed many valuable paintings, documents, and historical
mementos.
Prior to his removal to Maryland, Augustyn Heermans
had acquired interests in several tracts of considerable size
on Manhattan Island, but these he gradually disposed of to
different purchasers. His former residence in the Smits Vly
New Amsterdam in 1661. It will be found, however, that his youngest daughter,
Franciua, was baptized in the Dutch Church at New Amsterdam, on the 12th
of March, 1662. The dates of baptism of his other children were as follows:
Ephraim Georgius, September 1, 1652; Casparus, January 2, 1656; Anna
Margareta, March 10, 1653 ; and Judith, May 9, 1660.
MARYN ADRIAENSEN
291
remained in the occupation of various tenants till 1672,
when he sold the eastern portion of his land, with the
buildings, to Captain John Paine, of Boston, but the latter
had hardly taken possession when New York was captured
by the Dutch, and Paine 's property was confiscated. The
buildings, with a number of others, were now condemned and
demolished, on account of their standing too near the line of
fortifications; and though Heermans recovered his land by
reason of a mortgage which he held upon it, it was bereft of
most of its value, and he closed out finally his interests here
by selling the western portion of the plot in 1676 to George
Heathcote, and the eastern part in 1678 to Jan Jansen Slot.
We next reach, in proceeding along the Smits Vly, the
old Dutch house situated in a large garden near the south-
west corner of the present Maiden Lane and Pearl Street,
occupied at the time of our survey by Lysbet Tyssens. This
building, of which mention has been previously made (ante,
page 280), was originally the house of Hendrick Jansen, the
tailor, and was purchased from him in August, 1611, by
Maryn Adriaensen, the husband of Lysbet Tyssens.
As Augustyn Heermans came from a locality identified
with the origin of the Thirty Years' War, so Maryn Adriaen-
sen came from a place in like manner identified with another
great episode of history, — the struggle for independence of
the United Netherlands. He was born (as is supposed) at
Veere, — "the Ferry," — upon the north coast of the island
of Walcheren, in the province of Zeeland; and two genera-
tions before, his grandfather may well have been one of the
"Gueux," or "Sea-beggars," who, from Veere and from
the neighboring town of Vlissingen, or Flushing, roamed the
seas, preying upon the commerce of their Spanish masters
and oppressors, till in 1572 — having had the ports of Eng-
land closed against them — they took by storm from the
Spaniards the neighboring seaport of Briel, which the}'- made
the seat of their naval power, and thus laid the foundation-
stone of the Confederacy of the Provinces of the Nether-
292 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
lands. Rough and coarse, but brave, and passionately
devoted to the house of Orange, they made for themselves
and for their "land of sluices " a name in History and Ro-
mance; and their stern and somewhat truculent bearing,
their contempt of show and ostentation, their long swords,
cropped hair, and scarred faces live in Freiligrath's verse:
" Dann riihren die da schliefen l'angst,
Im Grabe sich die Geusen.
44 Sie steigen auf , eine wilde Schaar,
Im Kleid von diistrer Farbe,
Mit langem Schwert, und kurzem Haar
Und auf der Stirn die Narbe."
Maryn Adriaensen was one of the earliest colonists of New
Netherland, having come to Fort Orange, or Albany, in 1631.
Here he had a house which in 1642, shortly after his removal
to New Amsterdam, he sold to Dominie Johannes Megapo-
lensis, then recently installed as pastor at Fort Orange.
Upon taking up his residence in the Smits Vly at New
Amsterdam in the summer of 1641, Adriaensen seems to have
become rather closely associated with his well-to-do neighbor
Jan Jansen Damen, whose farm adjoined the rear of his own
plot upon the west. He was perhaps in some sort a depend-
ant of Damen, the latter having loaned him 1000 guilders
upon the purchase of his house in the Smits Vly. He
formed one of the party at Jan Damen's farmhouse near
Broadway, at the famous "Shrovetide dinner,,, in 1643, at
which, according to popular belief, the massacre of the
Indians was planned by Director-General Kieft, with Damen
and the two sons-in-law of the latter, Cornells van Tien-
hoven, the secretary, and Abraham Verplanck.1 It is at any
rate certain that Adriaensen with Jan Damen and Verplanck
were either signers of the remarkable document prepared
about this time, and entered on the Council Minutes, calling,
in the name of the whole community, for the murder of the
Indians, or else their names were affixed to it by Van Tien-
1 See ante, page 102.
KIEFT'S MANIFESTO
293
hoven himself.1 Whether Maryn Adriaensen had full knowl-
edge of this business, or whether he was in a condition at the
time not to know much of anything, he has the unenviable
distinction of heading the petition, and of receiving the
license to commit murder granted thereon by Director-Gen-
eral Kieft.2 When, in the course of a few days after the
slaughter of the Indians, the smoke of burning farmhouses
and the reports of massacres of the colonists b}' the natives
had shown Kieft that his great scheme had miscarried, he
promptly set about carrying out a further part of his plan ;
namely, that of shifting the blame from his own shoulders to
those of his previously selected scapegoats. He accord-
ingly issued a sort of manifesto of which the following is a
portion : —
" Some persons, delegated by the people, petitioned us to be
allowed to take revenge while those savages were within our reach,
apparently delivered in our hands by Divine Providence. We
entertained an aversion to bring the country into a condition of
uproar, and pointed out to those persons the consequences to re-
sult from their design, particularly with regard to those whose
dwellings were situated in exposed places, as our forces were too
few to attempt to defend every house with a sufficient number of
soldiers, and we also presented to them other considerations.
They, however, persisted in their desire, and told us that if we
refused our consent, the blood would come upon our own heads,
and we finally found ourselves obliged to accede to their wishes
and give them the assistance of our soldiers. And these latter
killed a considerable number, as did also the militia on their side,,,
etc.
Maryn Adriaensen was no lamb to be led quietly to the
slaughter in this manner; on the contrary, he was a man of
a bold and violent disposition, like his ancestors, the Flemish
sea-rovers. He had, in fact, hardly taken up his residence
in New Amsterdam when he fell into trouble, from a practice
1 See the petition, ante, page 103.
2 This latter document, with its curious mixture of violence, craft, and blas-
phemy, is set forth upon page 23, ante.
294 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
he had, in violation of the ordinances, of sailing out in his
cat-boat to meet incoming vessels before they were boarded
by the official sloop of the West India Company ; and it was
perhaps in connection with this same business that he was
charged by the fiscal with having drawn a knife upon some
person with whom he had a quarrel.
When Adriaensen heard that the Director-General was
attempting to unload the responsibility for the Indian mas-
sacre mainly upon his shoulders, his rage knew no bounds,
and he immediately started out to have satisfaction from
Kieft. On the 21st of March, 1643, Robert Penoyer, a
young man who was doubtless one of the English soldiers
in the garrison and off duty, being "in the tavern," — prob-
ably either "the Great Tavern" upon the shore, or Philip
Geraerdy's tavern on the Marckveldt, — saw Lysbet T}ssens,
Maryn Adriaensen 's wife, enter the tavern in a state of great
perturbation, crying that "her husband would kill the com-
mander. Go and catch him ! " Penoyer thereupon made his
way into the fort, and into the Director's house, where he
found Adriaensen with a pistol cocked, advancing upon the
Director-General, and crying, " What devilish lies are these
you are telling of me?" Some person present, however,
seized Maryn's pistol, while Penoyer took his sword from
him, and he was immediately placed under arrest. Within a
short time, however, a serving-man of Adriaensen, one Jacob
Slangh, appeared at the fort to avenge his master, and fired
a pistol at the Director-General, but without effect. Slangh
was thereupon fired on and killed by a sentry in the fort,
and his head was afterwards affixed to a gibbet.
As for Adriaensen, his cause was warmly espoused by many
of the principal men of the Colony, among others by Dominie
Bogardus,1 and in the excited state of public opinion, it was
1 " Then you embraced the cause of that criminal, composed his writings, and
took upon yourself to defend him. But nevertheless he was sent in chains to
Holland, on which account you audaciously fulminated on the subject during a
fortnight, and dishonored the pulpit by your passionate behaviour."
(Kieft to Dominie Bogardus, 2 January, 1646.)
LYSBET TYSSENS
295
deemed prudent by the Council to send him to the Nether-
lands for trial. We are not informed of the proceedings, if
any, which took place in the Netherlands in relation to the
case of Maryn Adriaensen. Mr. D. T. Valentine has found
evidence that he returned subsequently to New Amsterdam.
If this were so, he took no prominent part in any matters,
and he must have died before 1654, for in that year his
widow Lysbet Tyssens married Gerloh0 Michielsen of Col-
lumer Zyll, in Friesland; but he having been killed by the
Indians within a short time, she went to reside with a
married daughter at Fort Orange, or Albany. Lysbet, who
was from Alcmaer in North Holland, seems to have been a
woman of considerable business ability. After her husband's
imprisonment she took charge of his property in the Smits
Vly, and before the spring of 1644 she had sold a consider-
able portion of it to Jan Jansen Damen, partly, no doubt, in
extinguishment of the mortgage he held upon the premises.
The parcel sold to Damen was thrown by him into his well-
known "Claaver Weytie," or "Clover Pasture." Lysbet
retained the house, with about half an acre of land, at the
corner of Maagde Paetje, or Maiden Lane, afterwards in-
creasing her land by purchase. After the deportation of
her husband, and later, after his death, she appears to have
resided upon the premises at times, but at other periods it
was in the occupation of various tenants. Lysbet Tyssens
was still living and in possession of the property as late as
1682, about which time she sold off several lots from her
garden at this place. She had a son, Tys Marynsen, who
was a small boy at the time of his father's attack upon Kieft,
but we have no further information respecting him, and do
not know whether he reached maturity.
CHAPTER XXI
THE MAAGDE PAETJE, OR MAIDEN LANE. — SKIPPER
CORNELISSEN. — EREDERIK LUBBERTSEN AND HIS
HOUSE. — JAN AND MARY PEECK. — SANDER LEENDERT-
SEN'S HOUSE.— JAN VINJE, THE FIRST WHITE CHILD
BORN IN NEW NETHERLAND. — VINJE'S BREWERY
THERE is, perhaps, as much about the modern Maiden
Lane to remind one of the early times of New Amster-
dam as will be found in any locality of New York at the
present day. Standing at the corner of Pearl Street and
Maiden Lane, and looking in the direction of Broadway past
the dark opening in the tall houses which marks the entrance
of Liberty Street, — the historic Crown Street of the eighteenth
century, the name of which was changed at the close of the
Revolutionary War by the somewhat hysterical New Yorkers
of the period, because they thought they saw a sort of profana-
tion in the word " Crown," — the observer notices before him,
curving away to the right between high and dingy stores and
warehouses, the same Maagde Paetje, or Maidens' Path, only
somewhat wider than of yore, which Lysbet Tyssens and
Frederik Lubbertsen, from their respective dwellings at the
opposite corners of these same two streets, saw, in the middle
of the seventeenth century, winding through its hollow,
between the trees and bushes which lined the fence rows of
Jan Damen's and of Cornells van Tienhoven's farms on
either side of it.
As he passes through Gold, or William, or Nassau streets
too, the same observer will see before him the very ravine or
depression, though not so deep as of old, through which
the first wood-cutters of New Amsterdam traced their
Looking up Maiden Lane from Pearl Street.
THE MAAGDE PAETJE
297
path down to the East River shore. In the middle of the
seventeenth century it was doubtless like hundreds of similar
low-lying farm lanes of the present day, where the outcasts
of the forests — dogwoods and elder bushes, sumachs and
witch-hazels — collect along the hedges, and are overhung
by cat-briers and bitter-sweet vines, woodbine and the wild
grape. Towards the shore, near the present Gold Street, was
a wet spot at the foot of Van Tienhoven's hill pasture called
" Gouwenberg " (where, near the close of the seventeenth cen-
tury, tan-yards were established), and here, in the springy
ground, the arads, first harbingers of the vernal season, made
their appearance, pushing through the wet soil with their gor-
geous purple, red, and black hoods, and their coarse leaves of
pale green. Here the water collected into a small rill, and ran
down along the lane into the East River through a channel
likely enough covered, as such rills are apt to be, in the late
summer by the green and yellow masses of the jewel-weed,
and thickly bordered by mint and tansy.
What gave this by-lane the name of the Maagde Paetje,
or Maidens' Path, by which it was known in the town from
the earliest days, we can only conjecture. Was it in honor
of Maria, Christina, and Rachel, the three stepdaughters of
Jan Damen, who must have resided on the adjoining farm
with their own father, Guillaume Vigne (or Willem Vinje, as
his Dutch neighbors put it), at the time of the very first ad-
vance of settlers from the traders' cabins at the Blockhouse into
Manhattan Island ? We do not know ; but certain it is that
the lane was and is Maiden Lane,1 — a historic name worth a
hundred times the meaningless " Pine," " Cedar," and " Lib-
erty " streets in its vicinity.
Provision seems to have been first made for the care of
this lane~(which appears at the time to have been mainly used
1 Towards the close of the seventeenth century, about the time that streets
were being laid out through the adjoining Damen farm, the old lane was occa-
sionally spoken of as "The Green Lane." This name never became popular,
however, and was eventually fixed upon the small street west of the present
Nassau Street, and extending from Liberty Street to Maiden Lane ; this is
sometimes called Liberty Place at the present day.
298 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
by Secretary Van Tienhoven for access to parts of his farm
upon the north side of it) in the ground-brief of September 7,
1G41, to Lourens Cornelissen, for the parcel of ground at the
northwest corner of Pearl Street and Maiden Lane ; " with
the express condition that the said Lourens Cornelissen shall
repair the road leading from the farm of Cornells van Tien-
hoven to the beach, fit for the use of wagons, and when once
repaired, at the cost of the aforesaid Lourens Cornelissen, it
shall henceforth and forever be maintained and kept up by
said L. Cornelissen and Cornells van Tienhoven, half and
half." At the time of our survey, the Maagde Paetje had lost
part of its rural character. This was owing principally to
the erection of a brewery upon it several years before by Jan
Damen. This building appears to have stood on the south
side of the lane, and at the foot of the hill pasture called the
Claaver Weytie, wmere the water supply was abundant. The
position of this building would seem to have been about sixty
feet east of the present William Street. It had been managed
for several years by Jan Vinje, the stepson of Jan Damen, but
in 1658, some seven years after the death of the latter, the
heirs of the estate sold the brewery with nearly half an acre
of ground for 1375 guilders ($550) to one Anthony Moore,
and it then, in the course of several years, passed through
various hands, eventually coming again into the possession of
Jan Vinje. This latter personage was for a long time en-
gaged in the brewing business upon the modern Pearl Street
near Piatt, and although the period was several years after
the date of our survey, some reference will be made to him
in speaking of the latter locality.
At the northwestern angle of Maiden Lane and Pearl
Street stood a house, erected probably in 1641 or 1642 by
Captain Lourens Cornelissen Vanderwel, who, in documents
executed by himself, bears the imposing designation of
" Skipper under God of the ship the ' Angel Gabriel/ of about
one hundred lasts burden." The skipper owned about an
acre of ground here, stretching back some two hundred and
fifty feet to the foot of the " Gouwenberg " of Secretary Van
SKIPPER CORNELISSEN
299
Tienhoven's farm. The ground at this, the widest part of
the Smits Vly, seems to have been pretty wet, and the skipper
had to establish a broad trench through his garden, about on
the line between the present buildings Nos. 205 and 207
Pearl Street, and probably another one upon the east side of
his plot, between the buildings Nos. 219 and 221.
Of Captain Cornelissen we have not much information.
In his blustering letter of January 2, 1646, to Dominie Bo-
gardus, already alluded to,1 Director-General Kieft says:
" when, however, in 1644, one Lourens Cornelissen was here,
a man of profligate character, who had violated his oath, had
committed perjury and theft, he was taken under your pat-
ronage, and you were in daily correspondence with him, for
the reason merely that he had slandered the Director." The
gist of Cornelissen's offence, however, being evidently the
fact that he had spoken against Kieft, it is perhaps fair to
look upon the rest of the accusation, coupled as it is with the
somewhat inconsistent charge of much intimacy with a min-
ister of the gospel, as rather in the nature of a testimonial
of good character than otherwise, especially in view of the
source from whence it came.
However, Skipper Lourens did not long retain his house in
the Smits Vly, for in the spring of 1643, he sold it, with
about half an acre of the ground, for the sum of 1600 guil-
ders, or about $640 of the present currency, to Frederik
Lubbertsen, who was the owner and probably the occupant
at the time of our survey. Lubbertsen, who was a man of
about forty years of age at the time of his purchase of this
property, had come from Amsterdam, with his wife Styntje
and a daughter Rebecca. In 1640, he had received a grant
from the Dutch authorities of a large tract of land at Gou-
wanus on Long Island ; and it seems probable that from his
residence on Manhattan Island, he devoted his time to its
clearing and cultivation, as one of the appurtenances of his
house in the Smits Vly was an oven, which he stipulated
should be built capable of baking at one time the equivalent
1 See ante, page 294, note.
300 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
in flour of about a bushel and a half of grain, a fact indicative
of the presence of a considerable force of work-hands, perhaps
slaves, who doubtless manned his farm-boat daily for many
years. His Long Island possessions were in plain view from
his house at the foot of the Maagde Paetje. Looking to his
left across the East River, he could see, in the direction of the
Wallabout, his timber land, a tract of about thirty acres of
magnificent forest trees, some of which were still landmarks
far into the next century ; 1 it covered the high ground near
the foot of the present Bridge and Jay streets in Brooklyn.
About a mile to the right, down the East River, beyond the
high sand bluffs forming what are now known as the Brook-
lyn Heights, lay the large tract acquired by Lubbertsen in
1640. This extended from about the foot of the present
Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn, nearly a mile along the shore,
and it ran back from the shore an almost equal distance. A
large part of it was a region of salt meadows, interspersed
with ponds and tidal creeks and with small wooded islands
and sand banks, — the last deposits of the retreating glaciers.2
Beyond this low tract, however, the ground rose into swelling
hills, long cleared and occupied by the Indians as "maize
land," of which Lubbertsen's grant contained a considerable
share.
Prior to the year 1657, Frederik Lubbertsen had become
a widower; his daughter Rebecca, too, had left him some
eight or nine years before that time, marrying Jacob Leen-
dertsen van der Grift and taking up her residence in a house
upon the east side of Broadway, conveyed to her by her
father. About the date named, we find Lubbertsen marrying
for his second wife Tryntje Hendrickse, widow of Cornells
Pietersen, one of the earlier settlers. It was about this time
that Lubbertsen, doubtless with the view of establishing him-
self upon his Long Island farm,3 sold his house in the Smits
1 A great tulip or whitewood tree, which stood upon the bluff near the shore,
was known far and wide and is shown on several maps of the eighteenth century.
2 The tract is now in part occupied by the Atlantic Basin, so called.
8 Soon after the sale of the Smits Vly property, Lubbertsen seems to have
BANISHMENT OF MARY PEECK 301
Vly to Jan Peeck, an eccentric character, part Indian trader,
part broker between the English and Dutch merchants, and part
general speculator.1 His wife, Maria or Mary, managed his
property, and sometimes disposed of it in his long absences.
She seems also to have occasionally accompanied him on his
trading expeditions, where apparently she acquired consider-
able acquaintance with the Indians, which she turned to ad-
vantage by selling them liquor, to the great indignation of the
authorities at New Amsterdam, who, in 1664, fined her 500
guilders, and banished her from Manhattan Island for this
offence, " for which," as they say, " she has long been famous."
She is said, at this time, to have retired to the new settlement
of Schenectady for a short period; but the Dutch regime
coming to an end not long after her banishment, she soon
returned to New York, and was the owner of a house on
Hoogh Straet (or Duke's Street, as the English began to
call it), near the Town Hall, having in the mean time sold
the establishment in the Smits Vly.2
The easternmost half of his land in the Smits Vly had
been sold by Frederik Lubbertsen, in 1652, to one Albert
Cornelissen ; it does not appear to have been built upon at
the time of our survey, and in 1656 most of it came into the
built a farmhouse near the East Kiver shore upon his Long Island farm. This
stood not far from the foot of the present Pacific iStreet in Brooklyn. Here Lub-
bertsen resided for many years, and here he died, an aged man, in the latter part
of the seventeenth century. His large plantation here was divided between his
two daughters, by his second wife : Aeltje, who married Cornelis Sebring, and
Elsje, wife of Jacob Hansen Bergen ; their descendants are still to be found in
Brooklyn.
1 It was this Jan Peeck who, by reason of his making use, as a trading post
for traffic with the Indians, of the sheltered haven afforded by the creek empty-
ing into the Hudson River just south of the mountains of the Highlands (even
wintering there with his sloop), gave the stream the name of Jan Peeck's Kill,
which name is preserved in that of the adjacent village of Peekskill in West-
chester County.
2 She is thought to have been the person occasionally spoken of in the records
about this time as " Long Mary," though this is not accurately known. She was
either the daughter or sister of Philip du Trieux (or Do Truy, as the Dutch
called him). After some vicissitudes in her life, she is supposed to have married
Cornelis Volckersen, one of the oldest settlers, and after his death, in 1650, she
married Jan Peeck.
302 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
possession of Jan Peeck, still apparently unbuilt upon. After
Peeck had sold to Cornells Clopper, in the year 1660, the
Lubbertsen house, at the corner of Maiden Lane, which has
just been referred to, he seems to have built a house upon the
plot which he had acquired from Albert Cornelissen, and this
remained in possession of him and of his wife for many years.
This house, which must have occupied the site, or a part of
the site of the present building No. 207 Pearl Street, was just
about sufficiently removed from the observation of the town
authorities to afford a convenient drinking house for Indian
visitors to New Amsterdam, and it is supposed to have been
the seat of the illicit liquor traffic for which Mary Peeck was
banished from Manhattan Island in 1664.
Next adjoining upon the north to the apparently vacant
plot of Albert Cornelissen in the Smits Vly, stood in 1655
a house with about half an acre of ground, belonging to
an individual who was a vara avis in New Amsterdam, a
thoroughly Teutonized Scotchman, as much of a curiosity
in his way as was the Teutonized Englishman, Carel van
Brugge, already spoken of. This person's appellation among
his neighbors was the good honest Dutch name of Sander
Leendertsen. A little investigation, however, shows him
to have been Alexander (or Sandy) Lindesay, of the Glen,
in Scotland,1 who is said to have come from the neighbor-
1 His appellation is evidently derived from the ancient and well-known division
of the Lindesay family of Scotland into the branch of Glenesk (called frequently
"of the Glen ") and into that of " the Mount." The latter, which is the elder
branch, has had considerable lustre thrown upon it by one of its members, Sir
David Lindesay, the Scottish poet of the sixteenth century, who bore the office
of heraldic King-at-arms under James IV. Many will remember the poet's de-
scription, as given by Sir Walter Scott, in " Marmion " :
" He was a man of middle age ;
In aspect manly, grave, and sage,
As on King's errand come ;
But in the glances of his eye,
A penetrating, keen, and sly
Expression found its home ;
The flash of that satiric rage,
SANDER LEENDERTSEN
303
hood of Inverness. In Dutch times he used the name
Sander Leendertsen freely, but after the English regime
commenced, he called himself usually Alexander Glenn, by
which family name his descendants were known.
Alexander Lindesay, or Leendertsen, is said to have come
to New Netherland at a very early period, employed in some
capacity by the West India Company at its Fort Nassau on
the Delaware River, where in 1633 he, with Augustyn Heer-
mans, were witnesses of the sale of lands on the Schuylkill
River by the Indians to Arent Coersen. Sander soon became
an Indian trader, apparently dividing his time between New
Amsterdam and Fort Orange or Albany, at which latter
settlement he is found as early as 1616. His place in the
Smits Vly, which had formerly been the easterly half of the
garden and ground of Skipper Lourens Cornelissen, was
granted to Sander Leendertsen by the Director and Council
in 1616, it having been forfeited by Cornelissen by reason of
his allowing it to remain vacant and unimproved for more
than the prescribed period.1 Here Sander immediately built
a stone house, upon the site of the present glue warehouse,
No. 211 Pearl Street, and here he resided when in New
Amsterdam, certainly as late as 1658, and possibly later;2
but in 1665 he was one of the pioneers of the new settlement
" Which, bursting on the early stage,
Branded the vices of the age,
And broke the keys of Rome.
Still is thy name in high account,
And still thy verse has charms,
Sir David Lindesay of the Mount,
Lord Lion King-at-arms ! "
1 Some years, afterwards, however, Sander acquired a release from Skipper
Cornelissen.
2 At a period twenty years later than that of our survey, this plot of Sander
Leendertsen contained another building which must have occupied in part the
ground covered by the present No. 217 Pearl Street. What this was, or when
it was built, does not appear. Sander Leendertsen's well is clearly indicated in
the descriptions ; it stood some fifty feet in a northeasterly direction from his
stone house, and its remains are perhaps yet under the building No. 215 Pearl
Street.
304 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
of Schenectady, after which date there is no evidence that he
again resided in New York.1 A few years before this latter
date he is said to have parted with his property in the Smits
Vly, but if this were the case, he must have soon resumed it,
possibly by virtue of a mortgage upon it. The place seems
for many years to have been in the possession of various
tenants. About the time of the surrender to the English in
1G64, the house appears to have been occupied by one James
Webb, a Londoner, as a tavern or lodging-house with the
sign of Saint George and the Dragon.2
At the frontier settlement of Schenectady, Alexander
Lindesay, or Glenn, spent the last twenty years of his life.
His house, like those of the rest of the settlers, was within the
stockaded village, but his land embraced a tract of nearly
a thousand acres of fertile meadows on the north side of the
Mohawk River, and to this he gave the name of Nova Scotia.
Alexander did not live to witness the massacre of his neigh-
bors in 1690 by the French and Indians ; he had died about
five years before that event. The members of his family,
however, were treated with respect by the French command-
ant. Feelings of humanity, and possibly some Jacobite pro-
pensities in the Scotch blood of the Glenns, had induced them
to show kindness to certain Frenchmen who had been taken
prisoners by the English in the war which Louis XIV. was
waging to restore James II. to the English throne; and as a
mark of gratitude, the Glenn house in Schenectady is said to
have been spared by the express command of the French
governor of Canada on the destruction of the rest of the vil-
lage in 1690.
1 In 1656 he acted as an agent at New Amsterdam for Jacob Flodder of Fort
Orange, in the sale and conveyance by the latter of the lots in his speculative
purchase of what was known as the Onthoek of the Damen farm. See ante,
page 271.
2 This will doubtless serve to explain the mysterious entry of the burgomas-
ters in their minutes, under date of March 31, 1665, at which time the citizens
were called upon to declare how many soldiers of the garrison they were willing
to lodge : " The Man of the Knight of St. George will take one." This record
has puzzled many an inquirer. See Valentine's Manual N. Y., Com. Council
1861, p. 610.
THE GLENN MANSION, SCHENECTADY 305
A more quiet state of affairs in the next century induced
the Glenns to build the stately, albeit somewhat neglected old
mansion which still stands upon their estate, on the north
side of the Mohawk River at Schenectady. The stroller,
crossing the long bridge over the Mohawk at Schenectady,
and turning westward along the banks of the river, will see
to his left, at the distance of half a mile or so from the
bridge, — standing upon a low, grassy hillock overlooking
the city and the broad meadows of the Mohawk with their
curious purplish tinge of early summer, and the willowed
islands and shores of that lake-like stream, — a square, stuc-
coed house, with a flat, railed roof, bearing upon the front of
the building, in iron letters, the date "A. O. 1713." Ancient
trees surround the house, some of which may have stood there
when Sander Leendertsen's descendants erected the building,
within less than thirty years from his death. It is one of the
historic mansions of the State, and should not be allowed to
perish.
As for the property of Sander Leendertsen in the Smits
Vly, it was finally disposed of by him in the fall of 1675, —
the easterly portion to Abraham Lamberts en Moll, and the
larger western portion, with the original house, to Hendrick
Vandewater. Certain adverse claims existed, as it would
seem, against this property, for in 1674, we find one John
Saffin sending a communication to Secretary Nicoll, complain-
ing that " Henry Vandewater hath seruptitiously obtained a
mortgage of old Sander Leendertsen of Albany on the stone
house situated in the Smits Vly which was long before made
over to, and hath been in the possession of Captain Thomas
Willet and now pertains to his heires." He asks that Vande-
water be prevented from exposing the premises for sale or
otherwise prejudicing the said "heires" till they have an
opportunity of protecting their interests. No action, how-
ever, seems to have followed this communication, and Van-
dewater and his family remained in the occupation of the
property for many years.
20
306 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
At the portion of Smits Vly which we have now reached,
the river front had been originally embraced in the farm of
Secretary Van Tienhoven. He, however, had sold off various
plots of the low-lying ground along the road, and one of these
plots, which covered the sites of the present buildings Nos.
225 to 231 Pearl Street, together with a portion of the
modern Piatt Street,1 was conveyed by him in the year 1656
to Willem Beeckman; it then contained a house, however,
which in all probability stood there at the time of our survey.
This plot of ground becomes of interest as having been for many
years the residence and the seat of the brewing operations
of Jan Vinje, as he was called among his Dutch neighbors (or
Jean Vigne, as his parents would probably have called him),
a leading citizen of New Amsterdam, and a man who, as
there is eveiy reason to believe, enjoys the distinction of hav-
ing been the first child of European parentage born in New
Amsterdam or in New Netherland.
Our information upon this point is derived from the Jour-
nal of the Labadist missionaries, Danker and Sluyter, who
visited New York in 1679.2 While in the town they lodged
with one Jacob Hellekers, the site of whose house is now
occupied by the building No. 255 Pearl Street, near Fulton
Street. They were therefore near neighbors to Jan Vinje,
with whom they soon became acquainted. He was then, they
tell us, about sixty-five years of age, a prominent man, well
known to all the citizens, many of whom had themselves
resided in the town and had been intimately acquainted with
him for from thirty to forty years. It was the common
understanding that he was the first person born in the colony,
and the date of his birth would therefore go back to the
year 1614. His parents, so the Labadists inform us, were
Guillaume Vigne, and his wife, Adrienne Cuville, from
Valenciennes in France. How they came to be at New
Amsterdam in the early days of the trading-post we do not
1 Piatt Street was opened in the period between 1829 and 1835.
2 See their Journal (which we owe to the labors of Hon. Henry C. Murphy),
in Vol. I. of the Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society.
JAN VINJE
307
know, but there is certainly nothing improbable in the asser-
tion that a trader or an officer of the post should have had his
family with him at New Amsterdam. In the mouths of their
Dutch neighbors, the husband became known as Willem
Vinje, and his wife as Adriana Cuvilje. There is reason to
believe that Willem Vinje was the first tenant of the farm
laid out north of the present Wall Street by the West India
Company, and that he died there. In 1632 his widow mar-
ried Jan Jansen Damen, with whom the farm is more gener-
ally associated. At the date last named, as we are informed
by an instrument in the Albany records, of the four children
of Willem Vinje and his wife, two were married, Maria (to
Abraham Verplanck), and Christina (to Dirck Volckertsen),
while two, Rachel and Jan, were " minors " : as both of the
latter, however, were married within the next six years
(Rachel to the Secretary Van Tienhoven), they must have
been in the latter years of their minority in 1632, and the age
of Jan Vinje, according to the Labadists, which would have
been seventeen or eighteen at that time, is thus confirmed.1
The plot of ground we are considering, with its brew-house,
came into the possession of Jan Vinje about the year 1664,
that building having been erected a few years before, and at
some date between 1656 and 1660 : it had passed through the
hands of two or three individuals who do not appear to have
met with success in its management, and Vinje probably
acquired it through the foreclosure of a mortgage. A partial
description of the premises has been preserved to us. At the
southwestern corner of the plot, upon ground now partly
embraced in Piatt Street and partly in the modern building
No. 225 Pearl Street at the northwest corner of Piatt, stood
its mill-house ; while the brewery itself appears to have occu-
pied a rear position in the spacious enclosure which was about
1 The statement has often been made that Sarah, the daughter of Joris
Rapalje, was the first white child born in New Netherland. This statement is
based upon an allegation made by her in a petition to the Council asking for a
grant of land in 165G. Without discussing the value of this document as evi-
dence, an examination of it will show that she merely describes herself as " the
first born Christian daughter in New Netherland."
308 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
eighty feet front by one hundred and sixty in depth. Both of
these buildings were erected a short time after the period of
our survey ; but the dwelling-house itself, which in all prob-
ability stood upon a part of the ground now covered by the
buildings Nos. 227 and 229 Pearl Street, appears to have been
constructed by Secretary Van Tienhoven in 1647. His build-
ing contract with the carpenter Rynier Dominicus is still
extant and affords some curious specifications. The house
was to be thirty feet long by twenty feet wide on the inside ;
it was to have an " outlet," or entry, " eight feet wide, right
through." The " story of the front room, nine and one half
feet high : that of the back room, twelve and one half feet " :
with "five cross beams with girders and one without." The
entry was to contain the usual " bedstead " built in. The
exterior chimney was to be of timber ; and the beams of the
small structure were to have the capacious cross dimensions of
ten inches by seven. Vinje remained in possession of this
property until the summer of 1684, when he sold it to Nicho-
las de Meyer, in whose family it continued for many years.
The old buildings seem to have been removed or destroyed
before 1712, as a deed of the property, executed in that year,1
mentions it as ground " upon which lately stood a messuage
with a brew house and mill house." The premises remained,
during the greater portion of the eighteenth century, only
partly built upon, and at the time of the British occupation of
New York, during the War of the Revolution, they were
occupied by the barracks of the Hessian troops.
1 Lib. xxviii. cons., page 9, N. Y. Register's Office.
CHAPTER XXII
SECRETARY VAN TIENHOVENS BOUWERY OF " WAL LEX-
STEIN." — THE GOUWENBERG. — VAN TIENH OVENS
LANE. — THE VANDERCLYFF FAMILY
O Earth, what changes hast thou seen !
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
Tennyson : " In Memoriam."
AS one passes along the modern John Street, between
Cliff and Pearl streets, he sees, upon the north side of
the first-named street, a row of small shops, gradually dimin-
ishing in depth, till they terminate almost in a point at the
corner of Pearl Street. Through the windows of these dimin-
utive structures one can catch a glimpse of a sickly looking
tree or two in an interior enclosure, and is apt to wonder at
this bit of rus in urbe at such a spot. Beyond the diagonal
line which marks the north side of these shops, a gated alley-
way and stairs of correspondingly diminutive size leads to some
mysterious region within, which would seem to be perforce
a closed district to all individuals of a corpulent habit.
Many persons have doubtless wondered at this odd nook, so
much of the character of those which Charles Dickens delighted
in for the scenes of his novels ; but it is safe to say that very
few indeed have recognized in the line of these buildings one
of the oldest landmarks in New York, or have known that it
marked the north side of the lane which once led from the
310 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
river shore up the hill to Secretary Van Tienhoven's ancient
bouwery house.
Standing, about the year 1655, at the junction of this lane
with the river road, — or at the corner of the modern John and
Pearl streets, — and looking up the broad, grassy lane (of
nearly the width of the present John Street), one saw before
him at the top of a moderate ascent, a low-roofed Dutch farm-
house, with its stoep, its swinging half-doors, its small-paned
and heavy-shuttered windows, and its capacious exterior
chimneys ; a little way to the right (or east) of the building,
the spectator saw its outer cellar, partly excavated in the hill,
and partly sodded over. Within the lane, at the foot of the
hill, was a spring or well, to which a well-worn path led down
from the farmhouse. On the left of the lane, and occupying
a warm southeastern exposure upon the slope of the hill, was a
garden of large size, — probably of at least an acre in area, —
the site of which is now traversed by the modern Piatt Street.
This garden appears to have been hired by the West India
Company after the disturbance of its prior garden upon the
west side of Broadway, caused by the erection of the " forti-
fications " in 1653.1 Back of this garden was a somewhat
rough hillock used for pasturage purposes ; along its wet and
springy sides the common celandine displayed its yellow
flowers thickly ; this plant was called by the Dutch the gouwe,
and the hill became known as the Gouwenberg, which name
was in the course of time corrupted by the English into
Golden Hill, from which the present irregular street called
Gold Street took its origin. The lower portion of that street
appears to have been originally a lane giving access from Maagde
Paetje, or Maiden Lane, to the pasture field just spoken of.
To the north and east of the bouwery house, which must
have stood just about at the northwestern angle of the present
John and Cliff streets, lay its orchard, apparently of two or
three acres in area ; twenty -five years of growth in a new
soil must have given its trees a fair size at the period of our
1 In 1656, lots upon the modem Pearl Street at that point are bounded on the
north " by the clapboards of the Company's garden."
«
VAN TIENHOVEN'S LANE
311
survey ; and to the Dutch traveller, passing by on his way to
the Long Island ferry, these trees on the hill above him, white
with their fragrant blossoms in May, or loaded with their red
and yellow fruit in autumn, perhaps called to mind the
orchards of Beveland, or of Gooiland in the old country.
Between the orchard and the low ground of the Smits Vly
ran the farm lane above described, which, turning at right
angles at the farmhouse, skirted the brow of the hill ; as
widened, it forms the modern Cliff Street, between John and
Fulton streets. At a point which corresponds with the inter-
section of the present Cliff and Fulton streets, the lane of
Van Tienhoven's farm came to the declivity of a ravine or
gully which formed the division between this farm and the
land which belonged at the time of our survey to Thomas
Hall, but which is better known from its later owner, William
Beeckman, as the Beeckman estate ; to avoid this it appears
to have again turned westwards, running along what is now
Fulton Street as far as the turn in that street, at the inter-
section of the gloomy-looking cul-de-sac, known at present
as Rider's Alley; thence it ran into the lower end of the
present Ann Street, which it followed out to the Heerewegh,
or the modern Broadway. The object of this lane was evi-
dently to afford means of access, not only to the farther
portions of Van Tienhoven's farm, but also to the common
pasture occupying the present Park and vicinity ; although its
western half was supposed to skirt Van Tienhoven's farm,
it had been carelessly laid out as a track through the woods,
and this fact gave rise to the regulation of the lane (or modern
Ann Street) in the year 1642, at which time the adjoining
land was sold by the West India Company to Govert Loocker-
mans and Cornells Leendertsen.1
1 The deed from the Director and Council to Loockermans and Leendertsen,
dated March 26, 1642, contains the following provisions relating to this lane:
" And since from old time to now, between the land which we sell to Loockermans
and Cornelis Leendertsen, and the farm of Cornelis van Tienhoven, there has been
a wagon road running to the Great Highway ; it is expressly ordered that as
long as the said Loockermans and Leendertsen shall not have enclosed their
purchased land all around, sufficiently tight against cattle, then Cornelis van
312 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
This bouwery is spoken of as belonging to Cornells van
Tienhoven as early as the year 1640, though he did not receive
his formal ground-brief or patent for it until 1644. He was
not, however, the first owner or tenant of the farm, which was
in all probability laid out at a very early date, and its buildings,
perhaps, erected by the West India Company.
It was the fashion among the Dutch at this time to give to
their bouwerys special names, and many such examples are
found in New Netherland, sometimes taken from Indian
names, as Werpoes or Gamoenepa ; at others from some topo-
graphical or other peculiarity connected with the tract, as
Corlaers Hoek, the Malle Smits Berg, Deutel Bay, the
Bassen Bouwery, Krom Moeras, the Great Bouwery, the
Otterspoor, etc. ; while others were purely fanciful appellations,
as Zegendal or Vredendal : in this manner the farm we are
considering had received at a very early day the name of
Wallenstein.
It might at first sight seem strange that in a Protestant
community a farm should have been thus designated in honor,
as it undoubtedly was, of the great historical personage then
recently at the head of the Romanist party of Europe and of
the troops of the German Empire, assembled to put down the
Protestant states of that country. It must not be forgotten,
however, that during the last portion of his life and after his
assassination, Wallenstein came to be popularly regarded as a
secret friend to the Protestant cause, whose untimely death
alone prevented him from carrying out vast and mysterious
Tienhoven shall have the privilege of using the aforesaid road heyond his pali-
sades (as having been a road for a length of time) with wagon and horses. But
when the said land have been sufficiently cleared by Loockermans and Leendertsen
and shall have been enclosed with a sufficient fence, which must be kept up by
them, then the wagon road shall run exactly as the palisades of Tienhoven's
land stand, of which the said Loockermans and Leendertsen shall give one-half of
the land for the breadth of the road ; and in like manner Cornelis van Tienhoven
shall give one-half thereof, which aforesaid road shall be used equally, serving
only as an outlet to the Long Highway, as their own private road." This lane
was only laid out from " the Long Highway " towards the East River as far as
a point at the intersection of the present Gold and Ann streets, Loockermans'
and Leendertsen's land terminating at that place.
THE " WALLENSTEIN " BOUWERY 313
schemes which would have transformed Germany into a great
Protestant Empire. Whether this belief was sufficiently jus-
tified by facts can in all probability never be determined. It
existed, however, in the minds of many, and in the year 1638
we find Barent Dircksen Swart, who then appears to have
been in occupation of this farm, making a lease for six years
to " Cornells Jacobsen, the elder, from Mertensdyk and Cor-
nells Jacobsen, the younger, his brother," 1 of " the Bouwery
named Walensteyn," with all its " stock of cows, heifers,
mare, stallions, wagons, etc." The yearly rental of this farm
to be paid by the lessees was to be one hundred and fifty
pounds of butter and fifty schepels of grain, whether wheat,
r}re, or barley. Although the Indian troubles were still in the
future, the lessees had not forgotten the unprotected state of
the farm, for they continue thus, in the lease : " It being well
understood, should the house come to be burned unfortunately
either by hostile Indians or others, if it do not happen by the
fault of the lessees, the lessor shall stand the risk of the in-
cendiary."
As for the lessor Barent Dircksen, he himself had not been
the first occupant of the " Wallenstein " bouwery, but he had
purchased it from Antony Jansen of Vees, from whom he
received a deed for it in 1639, after he had been some time in
actual possession of the farm. The tenure of the bouwery
both by Jansen and by Dircksen was, it is quite evident, not
1 The writer is inclined to the belief that this second Cornelis Jacobsen is no
other than the Secretary Cornelis van Tienhoven himself, whose patronymic,
hitherto unknown, would thus appear. The village of Mertensdyk, or St. Martina-
dyke, is only about four miles from that of Tienhoven, both places being little
more than that distance from the ancient city of Utrecht in the Netherlands.
The inconvenient similarity of names would be alone sufficient to account for the
disuse of his family name by Van Tienhoven. We would also under this hy-
pothesis have a ready explanation of the fact that the farm is called Van Tien-
hoven's four years before he obtained his ground-brief for the same, and while it
was yet apparently under the claim of ownership of Barent Dircksen. It may
be also mentioned, for what it is worth, that in the family of Cornelis Jacobsen
van Mertensdyk, better known in the records of the colony as Cornelis Jacobsen
Stille, occurs the not very common name of Aefje or Effie (Eva), the same as
that of Cornelis van Tienhoven's sister, the wife of Pieter Stoutenburgh.
314 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
absolute, but merely a conditional and future right to owner-
ship, such as was frequently granted to the colonists by the
West India Company. The farmers were allowed to take
possession of a tract — sometimes partly improved, and some-
times not — with the stipulation that upon their performing
certain conditions, such as clearing of timber and bringing
under cultivation a certain number of acres, or erecting build-
ings and fences of a specified character within a given term,
often ten years, they should be entitled to receive an absolute
deed or ground-brief for the property from the company.
Of Barent Dircksen, the lessor of this farm, not much is
known, except that he was a middle-aged man, a baker by
trade, and is said in some of the records to have come from
" Noorden," which is likely enough a misspelling of the old
town of Naerden on the Zuyder Zee, some sixteen or seven-
teen miles north of Utrecht. The relations between him and
the lessees of his farm do not appear to have been entirely
harmonious, for upon the 26th of August, 1642, at an unusual
period of the year for the execution of a farm lease, and con-
siderably before the expiration of the J acobsen brothers' lease,
we find him making a new one to Bout Francen, of Naerden,
for " the bouwery called Walestyn," at an annual rental of
eighty pounds of butter, twenty schepels of wheat, and forty
of rye. This transaction seems to have led to the purchase of
Barent Dircksen's rights in the farm by Secretary Van Tien-
hoven, for upon the 13th of May of the next year 1643,1
Cornells van Tienhoven executes a lease to Cornells Jacobsen
Stille of " his bouwery in the Smits Vly " for three or six
1 Dircksen appears upon the sale of this farm to have retired from active
farming operations, for a time at least, or to have taken refuge in the town from
the Indians. In the fall of the year 1643, he purchased from Harck Syboutsen a
small house nearer the fort for the sum of 175 guilders or S70 (probably above
some incumbrance), "and a half-barrel of beer as a treat for the company." The
parties do not seem in this transaction to have considered the carrying out of the
sale as of vital importance, but it is provided with great care in the instrument
" if either of the parties backs out or repents of the sale, he shall pay a half-
barrel of beer." Barent Dircksen died before 1647, in which year we find his
widow married to Harman Smeeman, who had a small farm on the East River
shore adjoining the Stuyvesant plantation.
VAN TTENHOVEN'S FARM 315
years ; Bout Francen, the former lessee, having been provided
with a lease of Johannes la Montagne's bouwery of Vreden-
dal (at the north end of the present Central Park), from
which, in the course of a few months, he was routed out by
the Indians. Van Tienhoven's lease affords some curious
particulars of the condition in 1643 of this tract of land situ-
ated between the modern Maiden Lane, Ann Street, Broad-
way, and Pearl Street, and now so densely built upon with
stores, warehouses, and office buildings ; its fields had then
just been "fenced and railed in a proper manner," but por-
tions of it were still open and covered with wood or brush, for
the lessee agrees " every year to clear a piece of land and let it
lie fallow; any land added, to be fenced as at present." The
Secretary further agrees to build a hay or grain barrack upon
the farm for his tenant.
Cornells Jacobsen Stille appears to have remained as a
tenant in the occupation of this farm till the year 1647, when
he removed to the farm known as " Bouwery Number Six,"
which he had purchased of the West India Company, and
which lay between the present Division Street and the East
River. It was in the same year that Secretary Van Tien-
hoven, who had obtained a formal ground-brief for his
bouwery from Director-General Kieft three years before that
date, built the house upon the shore road which has already
been alluded to (ante, page 308) as the later residence of the
Secretary's brother-in-law, Jan Vinje. Either in this house,
or in the farmhouse on the hill, the Secretary and his family
may have dwelt during the next five or six years, and in the
immediate vicinity he seems to have taken some interest in
establishing several of his relatives by marriage, for in the
year 1649 he sold, to two of his brothers-in-law, Abraham
Verplanck and Dirck Volckertsen, small plots of ground upon
the Shore Road in the northeastern corner of his farm near
the intersection of the present Pearl and Fulton streets,
where, with one or two other persons, they built a small
cluster of houses, of which some notice will be taken hereafter.
In 1653, however, Van Tienhoven purchased the house on
316 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
't Water, or the modern Pearl Street, next to the old Dutch
church 1 which thenceforth became his residence ; and there is
no evidence that the bouwery of " Wallenstein " was ever
again the dwelling-place of any of the Secretary's family,
though it remained in their possession, and evidently occu-
pied by farmer tenants for nearly a score of years after the
death or disappearance of the Secretary in 1656.
Some of the subsequent changes coming to this property
may be not without interest. In 1671 the representatives of
the estates of Van Tienhoven and of his wife sold the farm
to one Jan Smedes, who held it a few years ; but in 1675,
Smedes sold the rear fields of the farm, extending to Broad-
way from a line parallel with the modern Gold Street, and
about one hundred feet west of it, to Coenrad Ten Eyck,
Carsten Luersen, John Harpendinck, and Jacob Abrahamsen,
four shoemakers and tanners of the town, who desired to
establish their tan-pits in the low ground along Maiden Lane,
at the southeastern angle of their purchase. The land used
for this purpose was of but small extent, and the balance of
the tract of seventeen acres, after deducting certain small gar-
den plots along Broadway, was used for pasturage purposes
for about twenty years, forming the well-known topographical
feature of the early town, known as the " Shoemakers' Field."
In 1696, the present streets were run through this tract ; it
was divided into a number of lots which were distributed
among the partners in the purchase, and were slowly sold off
by them for small prices, averaging perhaps $100 each, of the
present currency.
The old bouwery house, with about five or six acres of
land, was sold by Smedes to Hendrick Rycken, a blacksmith,
in 1677 ; and four years later Rycken parted with the property
to a man, who, with his family, is perhaps more closely asso-
ciated with the place than any of its former owners.2 This
1 See ante, page 55, etc.
2 There was a tradition, some time ago, among the members of the Riker
family, that their ancestor sold this place out of disgust at the snakes then in-
festing the wet grounds about the Gouwenberg and Smits Vly. As, however, he
THE VANDERCLYFF FAMILY
31T
was Dirck Jansen Vanderclyff, who appears to have come
from the village of Alphen, a few miles southeast of the
swamp-environed fortress of Breda, in Brabant. At New
York, he married Geesje, the daughter of Hendrick Willemsen,
a baker who long resided at the northwest corner of the pres-
ent Bridge and Broad streets. In the old farmhouse this
family resided for many years, and its broad lane leading down
the hill to the waterside must have been well trodden by the
eight or ten small Vanderclyff s, or " Van Cleefs," as they
came to be called. Before 1695, Dirck Vanderclyff had died,
and his energetic widow set about selling off her property
here, in lots. The old farm lane running along the brow of
the hill parallel with the river road formed one of her streets,
and its turn at right angles formed another one which she
designed to lead into one of the new streets which the Shoe-
makers were laying out, at about this time, on their adjoining
property. Geesje was an American-born woman, but she had
a great admiration for her father's country, and for its great
Stadtholder, who was then filling so prominent a place in the
eyes of the world, — William of Nassau, Prince of Orange.
The Shoemakers, upon their adjoining property, had named
one of their streets William Street, but the rest of the Stadt-
holder's title was open to Geesje, and she called the lane at
the top of the hill — scarcely four hundred feet in length —
Orange Street, while the other, of not much greater length,
she designated Nassau Street. In course of time those names
came to be applied to streets of greater length and of more
importance, in other parts of the town. For want of a gen-
erally accepted name, her " Orange Street " was generally
known as Vanderclyff' s, or Van Cleefs Street, whence its
modem name of Cliff Street, while " Nassau Street " became
merged in Fair Street, of the " Shoemaker's Pasture," now
Fulton Street.
In the old farmhouse here Geesje Vanderclyff lived many
years, — she resided here certainly as late as 1711, — and Mr.
purchased the property for 2900 guilders and sold for 5000 guilders, — a neat
advance for those days, — the snake story is not needed to explain the sale.
318 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
D. T. Valentine has found some reason to believe that she kept
a tavern here. Her husband, Dirck, undoubtedly did, during
his lifetime, establish a place of resort at u The Orchard ; "
and it was here, in 1682, that James Graham, afterwards
Recorder of the City, and Attorney-General of the province,
was mysteriously stabbed, in the midst of a social party and
apparently without cause, by Captain Baxter, an English
officer whom he was entertaining, — the wound, however, not
proving very serious. Of Geesje's large family, six daughters
reached years of maturity, and among them was divided what
remained of the place at their mother's death. Most of them
had married persons of English descent, and the Dutch charac-
teristics of the Vanderclyffs soon disappeared.1
It may be noted that upon land immediately adjoining the
Vanderclyff farmhouse, and in all probability upon a portion
of what had been its barnyard, was erected at some time
within the period from 1724 to 1728 the first church building
of the Baptists in New York City. It had a very ephemeral
existence as a church edifice, being claimed as private prop-
erty and soon closed by one of its first trustees. It appears,
however, as late as upon the map of 1755 as the " Baptist
Meeting/' 2
1 Of the children of Dirck and Geesje Vanderclyff, Cornelia was married to
Benjamin Norwood in 1 693 ; Catharine to John Lowry or Loring, in or about
1694 ; Lysbet to John Bruce in 1696 ; Margaretha to Peter Burtell, or Brutell, in
1704; Femmetje,'or Euphemia, to Andries Hardenbrook in 1709; Maria, a twin
daughter, grew to maturity, but does not appear to have married.
2 See manuscript of Rev. Morgan Edwards as cited by Rev. Wm. Parkinson in
his sketch of the " Origin of the First Baptist Church in the City of New York."
CHAPTER XXIII
THE HAMLET AT THE FERRY.— LAMBERT MOLL. — HAG E
BRUYNSEN, THE SWEDE. — DIRCK VOLCKERTSEN AND
HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, ABRAHAM VERPLANCK. — THOMAS
HALL'S PLACE
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the Eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his State,
Robed in flames, and amber light
The clouds in thousand liveries dight.
Milton : " L'Allegro."
FROM his farmhouse on the hill, Secretary Van Tienhoven
could look down upon a row of five houses standing in
close proximity to one another in the Smits Vly, and at the
southeastern angle of his estate. These buildings, together
with the neighboring house of Thomas Hall, the warehouse
of Isaac Allerton, and the ferry-house of Eghbert van Borsum,
formed a small hamlet often spoken of simply as "The
Ferry."
In the summer of 1649, the Secretary had sold three plots
of ground upon the river road, and near the intersection of
the modem Pearl and Fulton streets, to two of his brothers-
in-law, Abraham Verplanck and Dirck Volckertsen, and to
one Lambert Huybertsen. These plots contained nearly half
an acre each, and extended back from the river road to the
high ground in their rear. Volckertsen soon subdivided his
parcel, and sold to persons who built upon their plots, so that
the previously isolated state of the Secretary's farmhouse was
somewhat relieved.
The first of these buildings, going towards the ferry, at the
time of our survey, was the house of Lambert Huybertsen
320 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Moll, to whom sometimes the designation of "klomp," or
wooden shoe, was given, — probably either from his wearing
or manufacturing those useful articles. His house seems to
have stood about upon the site of the present building, No.
253 Pearl Street, and was built, in all probability, about the
time of his acquiring the land in 1649. He seems to have
brought his family with him from the Netherlands, though from
what particular place is uncertain, one of his sons, Hendrick,
appearing in the records as of Amsterdam, and another,
Huybert, of Aernhem, on the lower Rhine. Of Lambert's
life in New Amsterdam not much is known. He was weak
enough, on one occasion, to appear with " just a drappie in
the e'e " before the Court of Burgomasters, at the Stadt
Huys, during the progress of a suit by him against Isaac Kip ;
the indignant court promptly vindicated its outraged dignity
by fining the offender the sum of six guilders, equivalent to
two dollars and forty cents, and turning him out of its
presence. Nevertheless, Lambert appears to have been a man
of a humane and kindly disposition. There is some evidence
that he followed the occupation of a boat-builder or boatman,1
and upon the occurrence of the Indian panic of 1655 he loaned
one of his scows to the frightened inhabitants of Gamoenepa,
or Communipaw, across the North River, for the purpose of
ferrying over their cattle to Manhattan Island. The refugees
gave themselves, upon this occasion, no concern about return-
ing the vessel to its owner, but simply abandoned it, and
Lambert experienced much trouble in recovering its posses-
sion. Lambert Huybertsen seems to have resided in this
house until his death, which took place some time before the
year 1676, at which period the property was sold to Elias
Puddington, or Purington, a prominent shipwright in the
early da}^s of the English regime.2
1 In 1G56 Lambert Moll was ordered by the Council to make an examination
and report upon the condition of a vessel from Virginia then in the harbor.
2 Lambert Huybertsen and his son Reyer were the owners of a tract of land
embracing about one hundred and fifty acres, which extended along the East River
from the marshes of the Wallabout nearly to the present North First Street, in
DIRCK VOLCKERTSEN
321
Closely adjoining the house of Lambert Huybertsen, in
an easterly direction, and apparently upon the site of No.
255 Pearl Street, was the small house of Hage (sometimes
called Hacke, and sometimes Auke) Bruynsen, a Swede, whom
we find at New Amsterdam in the early part of 1653, when
he married Anneken Jans, a Danish woman from Holstein.
In the fall of the same year he purchased a small slip of
ground here from Dirck Volckertsen, and seems to have built
upon it at once. Bruynsen was from the Province of Sma-
land in the southern part of Sweden ; it was at the head of
the famous Smaland Cavalry that Gustavus Adolphus, King
of Sweden, met his death at Liitzen, in 1632 ; and for aught
we know, Bruynsen, as a trooper in the Swedish squadrons,
may have confronted his neighbor, Augustyn Heermans,
in Wallenstein's army, on that memorable day. Bruynsen
died about the year 1668, and two years later his house A\as
sold to one Jacob Hellekers, familiarly known as " black
Jacob." The house is of some interest, as the lodging-place,
in 1679, of the Labadist missionaries, Danker and Sluyter,
whose interesting journal of their experiences in the New
World was brought to light by Hon. Henry C. Murphy some
years ago.1
Next beyond the house of Hage Bruynsen stood, in 1655,
the residence of Dirck Volckertsen, the brother-in-law of
Secretary Van Tienhoven, — not his original house at this
place, built upon his acquiring the land in 1649 from the
Secretary, but a later one, which he appears to have built for
himself about 1651, at which time he had sold his first house
to Roeloff Teunissen. Dirck Volckertsen, at the time of our
survey, was in the later years of his life, and was in all prob-
ability at this time, the earliest European settler living in
the colony. In considering him, we are going back to the
days of the blockhouse and trading-post, with which he must
Brooklyn, thus covering about one-half of the modern Williamsburgh. Lambert's
patent was acquired as early as 1641. Within twenty or twenty-five years,
however, both father and son had disposed of their holdings on Long Island.
1 See the translated Journal in Vol. I., Memoirs Long Island Historical
Society.
21
322 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
have been familiar. In the year 1621 we find Dirck Volckert-
sen and Cornelis Volckertsen (who was in all probability his
brother), together with certain other persons, presenting a
petition to the States-General of the Netherlands, praying for
permission to send a ship over to New Netherland, " with
all sorts of permitted merchandise," and it was, in all proba-
bility, in pursuance of this design that the two Volckertsens
came over to the colony. These men, at the period of their
mercantile venture, were residents of Hoorn, on the peninsula
of North Holland, but they appear to have been Danes, or
Scandinavians by birth,1 and Dirck was closely associated
in New Netherland with the Swedes and Norwegians in the
colony. How the Volckertsens spent their earlier years in
New Netherland we do not know. When they are first met
with in the records of the colony, about 1644, Cornelis was
residing upon the east side of the Heerewegh, or Broadway,
upon a grant which he had obtained there a short time before,
and through which the modern Exchange Place runs. Here
he seems to have kept a tavern for a short time, but he died
before 1650, in which year his widow married Jan Peeck, of
whom previous mention has been made.2
Dirck at this time was living apparently in the house after-
wards known as Sergeant Litscho's tavern, upon the road
along the East River, with which he owned a small plot of
land. He had married, before 1632, Christina, daughter of
Guillaume Vigne, or Willem Vinje, and step-daughter of Jan
Damen, but he does not appear to have been on the best of
terms with his wife's family, and especially with his step-
father, Jan Damen. In 1645 he disposed of his place along
the river road ; but four years later, having obtained a grant
of land from his brother-in-law, Secretary Van Tienhoven, at
the place in the Smits Vly at which we have now arrived,
1 The name " Volckertsen " seems to be a refinement by the Dutch upon
" Holgersen," by which name Dirck is occasionally designated. Holger, or Ogier,
the Dane, living in the time of Charlemagne, is a great legendary hero of Den-
mark, and it was possibly to the story of his ghost, which haunted the Castle of
Elsinore, that we owe Shakespeare's " Hamlet."
2 See ante, page 301.
THE NORMAN'S KILL
323
he built a house which must have stood upon the whole or a
part of the site of the modern building, No. 259 Pearl Street.
This, with one-half of his garden of ninety-two feet front,
extending back something over two hundred feet to the hill
upon which the farmhouse of his brother-in-law stood, he
disposed of within a couple of years to a Swedish sea captain
named Roeloff Teunissen, as above stated, and he then
erected upon the site of the present building, No. 257 Pearl
Street, the house which he occupied at the time of our survey.
In 1645 Dirck Volckertsen received a patent for the lands
along the East River, which form the modern Greenpoint;
from the appellation of w The Norman " frequently given to
him, the kill on the south side of his grant, known in late
times as the Bushwick Creek, was in the seventeenth century
usually spoken of as the Norman's Kill. Through this tract
of land a long lane or wood road stretched up from the river
through the forest to the spot where, in later years, the ham-
let of Bushwick grew up. Volckertsen seems to have culti-
vated a portion of this tract, probably residing at his house in
the Smits Vly, and like many of the other farmers along the
shore, sailing to and from the scene of his agricultural labors,
with his sons and work hands. In 1653 he conveyed to
Jacob Haie, or Haes, who appears to have been the husband
of his daughter, Christina, that portion of the tract lying
north of the lane just mentioned, but Haes had hardly estab-
lished himself here, when in the fall of 1655, his house was
burned by the Indians, as has been already mentioned.1
After the cessation of the Indian troubles, Dirck Volckertsen
appears to have removed to his farm at the Norman's Kill, for
in a deed of 1661 he describes himself as of " Bushwyk. "
The entire tract eventually came into the hands of the Mese-
role family, descendants of Dirck's daughter Christina, who
held it until recent years, and may still hold some portions of
it.
The occupant of Dirck Volckertsen's original house upon
the parcel of ground in the Smits Vly, who was still his
1 See ante, page 169.
324 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
neighbor at the time of our survey, was, as has been stated,
one Roeloff Teunissen. This man came from where Gothen-
burg looks out from among its bare hills of gray granite
upon the blue waters of the broad Cattegat which separates
Sweden from Denmark. The old city of the Goths was then,
as now, one of the principal seaports of Sweden, and, like
many of its natives, RoelofT Teunissen was a seafaring man.
In 1651 he had found employment in the Dutch service, and
was then " Master of the ship the Emperor Charles." He re-
sided here at his house in the Smits Vly till 1657, when he
sold the premises to Jan Hendricks Steelman.
The remaining house in Secretary Van Tienhoven's hamlet
near " The Ferry " was, in 1G55, that of his brother-in-law,
Abraham Isaacsen Verplanck. This stood in a large garden,
of about ninety feet front by two hundred feet in depth, and
its site is believed to be covered by the modern Fulton
Street.1 Verplanck was one of the earliest colonists, and before
1632 had married Maria, the eldest daughter of Willem Vinje,
and sister of Rachel, the Secretary's wife, and of Christina,
the wife of Dirck Volckertsen. As to the particular occupa-
tion of Verplanck we have but little information: as early
as 1638 he had acquired a patent for the tract across the
North River, called Pouwells Hoek, upon which the modern
Jersey City stands, but he himself does not appear to have
been engaged in farming operations. There are evidences
that he was not a popular man in the community, for in 1642
he incurred the wrath of the Director and Council by defi-
antly tearing down one of the placards of ordinances posted
by them. For this offence, enhanced by remarks considered
" slanderous " by the authorities, the rather severe fine of 300
guilders, or about SI 20, was imposed on him. On the other
hand, his conduct in the following year in signing, with his
wife's step-father, Jan Damen, and with Maryn Adriaensen,
the petition for leave to attack the Wechquaskeek Indians
brought him into great odium among the colonists, who con-
1 This portion of Fulton Street was only opened through from Cliff Street
to the East River a few years before 1817.
THOMAS HALL
325
sidered him as one of those who were directly responsible for
the devastations committed by the natives in retaliation for
the massacre by the Dutch. Verplanck lived for many years
after he had built his house in the Smit's Vly in 1649, but
whether he resided here constantly is not known, as there
are indications that a portion of his time was spent at Fort
Orange, or Albany.
Looking eastward from Secretary Van Tienhoven's farm-
house near the East River across a ravine, which marked the
boundary of his farm, and which traversed the space between
the modern Fulton and Beekman streets, one could see a
small isolated hillock, containing some eight or nine acres of
land, which fell away, upon its farther side, into a hollow of
swampy woodland, the site of which is still known by the
name of " The Swamp," though the oaks and maples, the alders
and swamp blackberries, of the Secretary's time have long
since given way to dingy warehouses crammed with hides
and leather, the odors of which fill the air where perhaps the
Secretary may have sniffed the fragrance of the wild grape.
This hillock (which is plainly discernible in the modern
grade of Pearl Street, the ancient river road), pushing for-
wards towards the East River, put an end to the low grounds
of the Smits Vly, which extended from the palisades at Wall
Street to this point. Upon the hill, at a spot which has not
been accurately determined, but which must have been inter-
mediate between the present Beekman and Ferry streets,
stood, in 1655, the "house, brew-house, mill-house, with
a horse-mill and other buildings " of the Secretary's neigh-
bor, the Englishman Thomas Hall. Back of the buildings,
upon ground extending from the modern Cliff Street to Gold
Street, was a goodly orchard, above which towered up, at its
southwest corner, and just at the intersection of the modern
Ann and Gold streets, the landmark long known as " The
Great Tree." On the south side of the buildings, upon
ground sloping towards the Smits Vly and the modern Fulton
Street, was a large garden. At the time of our survey, this
property had been very recently acquired by Thomas Hall,
326 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
but it had a history extending some years back into the earlier
days of the colony. As early as 1638, this parcel of land was
in the possession of Philip du Trieux (or De Truy, as the
Dutch generally designated him), who was long the Court
" Messenger," or marshal, at New Amsterdam. Philip was
one of the older residents, and seems to have been one of the
first, if not the very first to build upon the Bever Graft, or the
modern Beaver Street, where for a number of years he had a
house. In 1640 he received his ground-brief or patent for
the land adjoining Secretary Van Tienhoven's farm, and
seems to have then resided upon it, for about that time he
with several others of that vicinity make a formal contract
with Claes Groen and Pieter Lievesen for the herding of
their goats for a whole year, at the munificent sum of one
guilder, or about forty cents per year for each goat. This
important document is entered with much formality upon the
Register of the Secretary of the Council.
Philip de Truy had died some time before 1653 : he
seems to have leased or to have contracted to sell this place
to Nicholas Stilwel, for in 1649 we find the latter promising
to furnish one Henry Bresar with " palisades " enough to
fence the premises along the river road, and within two years
to furnish enough more to fence the other sides of the land,
in consideration of which, Bresar acknowledges that " he has
taken off the hands of Nicolaes Stillwell the land and dwell-
ing house " in question. Bresar seems to have remained in
possession of the place till about the year 1653, when he built
a new house a short distance beyond the ferry, on some land
which he had acquired there, and the former dwelling-house
of Philip de Truy, after one or two intermediate changes,
was bought, in August, 1654, by Thomas Hall.
This man, who was for nearly thirty-five years a prominent
character at New Amsterdam, possesses a peculiar interest to
us as having been with his partner, George Holmes, beyond
any reasonable doubt the first English settlers in the present
State of New York ; that honor has been claimed for Lion
Gardiner, who acquired Gardiner's Island at the eastern end
of Long Island, in 1639 ; but in 1638 Thomas Hall with
HALL'S TOBACCO PLANTATION 327
Holmes was in occupation of ex-Director Van Twiller's
tobacco plantation at Sapokanican near the later Greenwich
village, and in all probability they had been there for at least
a year or two before that date.
Hall, who was a native of Gloucestershire in the west of
England, appears to have been one of a little band of colonists
who, after a short sojourn in New England, concluded to
establish themselves, without seeking any one's permission,
in the lands claimed by the Dutch along the Delaware River.
Made prisoners and brought to New Amsterdam in 1635,
several of these colonists determined to become subjects of
the Dutch and to establish themselves in New Amsterdam,
and among these, as it is supposed, were both Hall and
Holmes. In some way these men, though young, — Hall was
born about in the year 1614, — had become familiar with the
cultivation and curing of tobacco, and they accordingly
commenced operations in partnership as tobacco-planters, by
leasing Director Van Twiller's large bouwery, one of the
best on the island. By 1639, they had been so successful
that they determined to set up a plantation of their own on
some suitable ground near the East River shore, at what was
called Deutel Bay near the present Forty-sixth Street. In
the next year the partners separated, Hall selling out for six-
teen hundred pounds of tobacco his interest in the Deutel
Bay farm to Holmes, who thereupon established himself upon
that farm, which remained long in the possession of him and
of his descendants.
Thomas Hall remained till the beginning of 1647 upon ex-
Director Van Twiller's plantation. When he first came to
New Netherland he was an unmarried man, but in 1641 he
married a distressed English widow who had found herself
in the painful position of being left destitute and alone in a
strange land and among a foreign people. This was Anna
Mitford, from Bristol, not very far from the scenes of Hall's
youth. She had been the wife of William Quick, who had
recently died very poor. In a pathetic petition which she
made to the Director and Council soon after her husband's
death she shows that she " is an afflicted widow, in a strange
328 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
land, without any means or effects to satisfy the creditors ;
yea, even knows not where to lay her head, or to obtain
a morsel of bread," — she therefore abandons all the very
humble effects of her husband to his creditors. Her mar-
riage with Thomas Hall seems to have been a fortunate one,
and she survived him after thirty years of married life, most
of which were spent at the house upon the river road to
which we have just alluded.
For many years Thomas Hall carried on his farming opera-
tions upon Manhattan Island ; he seems, besides, to have been
something of a speculator, and several large farms passed
through his hands and were sold or exchanged by him. He
appears to have been familiar with the language and customs
of his Dutch neighbors, was generally respected and trusted
by them, and was often associated with them in business or
speculation. In 1651 he was appointed one of the curators
of the estate of Jan Jansen Damen, and seems to have suc-
ceeded in reconciling the conflicting interests of Damen's
heirs in the Netherlands with those of his stepchildren in
New Amsterdam. In 1650 he was one of the delegates on
behalf of the people in their application for a city government
for New Amsterdam; and in 1668 he was one of the commis-
sioners appointed to lay out and determine the most con-
venient wagon-road to Harlem.
After the death of Thomas Hall, in 1669, his widow sold
in the following year the property on which she and her
husband had long resided to Willem Beeckman, reserving a
right during her life to one-half of its orchard. With the
Beeckman family the place soon came to be popularly iden-
tified, the land being known as " Beekman's orchard " long
after the last apple or pear tree had vanished ; the modern
Beekman Street, which traverses it, still aids in preserving
the associations. As for Mrs. Anna Hall, after the sale of
the property, she took up her residence in a house upon the
south side of Wall Street, near Broad Street, where she is
found residing in 1674, but the time of her death is not
ascertained.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE TOWN'S END AND BESTEVAERS KREUPELBOSCH. —
ISAAC ALLERTON AND HIS WAREHOUSE. — LOO CKERMANS'
E ARM. — THE EERRY. — HARRY BRAZIER'S HOUSE.—
DIRCK, THE POTTER
There were also pastures covered with gray rocks, looking like sheep; the
green woods in some places were intersected by fields of brown rye, or soft clover.
On the whole it was a verdant scene, — greenness, like a hollow ocean, spread itself
out before her ; the hills were green, the depths were green, the trees, grass, and
weeds were green ; and in the forest, on the south margin of the pond, the dark-
ness as the sun went down seemed to form itself into caverns and grottoes, and
strange fantastic shapes in the solid greenness. Deep in those woods the blackcap
and thrush still hooted and clang unweariedly ; she heard also the cawing of
crows and the scream of the loon ; the tinkle of bells, the lowing of cows, and
the bleating of sheep were distinctly audible. Her own robin, on the butternut
below, began his long, sweet, many toned carol ; the tree-toad chimed in with its
loud, trilling chirrup; and frogs, from the pond and mill brook, crooled,
chubbed, and croaked. — Jidd's "Margaret."
UPON some such summer evening as the author of
" Margaret " has so graphically depicted, and amid
very similar surroundings, it is not unlikely that there may
have come to Thomas Hall — as he strolled, at about the
period of our survey, in an unoccupied hour, through his
young orchard on the hill back of his newly-acquired home on
the East River shore, and as he looked over the quiet rural
landscape spread out before him at the upper end of the village
of New Amsterdam — memories of his old home in far away
Gloucestershire.
It was a distinctly English landscape : beyond the rear fence
of his orchard, about at the present Gold Street, he saw as
he looked northwards — toward where the tall newspaper build-
ings of Printing House Square and the hurrying crowds at the
entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge now present themselves —
330 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the fields of rye or of peas, of maize or of tobacco, of Govert
Loockermans' farm, long hired of him and cultivated by a
sturdy Dutch farmer, Hendrick Pietersen van Hasselt. Beyond
the fence upon the farther side of these fields, which ran along
the line of the present Chatham and Nassau streets, lay the
broad stretch of the Common Pasture, where the cows from the
town grazed among the scattered rocks and bushes, or from
which, at the close of the day, they wended their way, under
the guidance of their herdsman, in a leisurely procession down
the Heerewegh and Maagtle Paetje, toward the houses of their
owners in the town. Beyond the commons again were the
gently sloping fields of the Company's bouwery, west of the
present Broadway : and the wooded hills of Hoboken, across
the North River, closed the view in this direction.
As the gazer at the above station turned farther to his
right, he saw before him, beyond the same fields of Loocker-
mans, — which curved, in a semicircular form, from the
hedges of Van Tienhoven's lane down to the East River, —
two rough, forest-covered elevations: one of these, at the
distance of about half a mile from him, was the hill known as
the Kalck (or Kolck) Hoek ; the other, somewhat nearer, was
called (perhaps from a corruption by the Dutch of the English
word " Catamount " ) Catiemuts Hoek, or hill.1 Between
these two hills, and shaded by their trees, which dropped their
butternuts, acorns, and hickory nuts into its waters, lay the
beautiful little lakelet long known as the Kolck,2 and occa-
sionally spoken of merely as the " Versche Water," or fresh
water ; and around the base of the last-mentioned hill wound
the narrow road or track leading to the bouwerys, situated
farther up the island. Still farther to the right, the high
grounds and Loockermans' fields fell away into a tract of a
few acres of wet meadow-land, through which a small brook,
forming an outlet in wet seasons to the Kolck, flowed sluggishly
into the East River ; near the head of this meadow, and where
1 The former of these hills was long afterwards cut down in the grading of
Broadway through it ; the latter in the grading of Chatham Street.
2 Corrupted by the English into " Collect/*
THE "SWAMP"
331
the road crossed its stream and ascended the hill beyond, two
or three small thatched cottages marked the site of the present
Chatham Square ; and on the farther side of the meadow the
ground rose again into the broad fields and orchards of the
larger bouwerys, laid out a score of years before by the West
India Company, beyond which a curving line of wood-crested
hills closed in the horizon.
In this latter direction, however, the view of the observer
from Thomas Hall's orchard was somewhat interfered with by
the trees of a swampy hollow, or basin, which lay below him.
This covered some four or five acres of ground, and was
known as Bestevaers Kreupelbosch, or " the Old Man's
Swamp." For some reason, possibly because it was considered
worthless, it had never been granted to any person by the
officers of the West India Company, although the land sur-
rounding it had all been appropriated by various individuals ;
and the Swamp lay, cut off from general access, a sort of
41 no man's land," of not much use except to the adjoining
owners for the purpose of watering their cattle at its pools,
or to shoot woodcock, — or those birds' poor relations, the
"high holders," — in its muddy thickets.
Whether because of copious springs which existed in the
wet hollow of the Kreupelbosch, or which had formerly existed
there before the clearing of the surrounding land, or whether
because of the action of the ancient glaciers which had moulded
this basin, a considerable depression, as of the bed of a stream
of some size, led from the Swamp into the East River ; its
traces may yet be seen in the grade of the modern Pearl Street
at Peck Slip. This depression, extending out into the East
River, formed a small cove or haven, upon one side of which,
by a little docking and filling out, Isaac Allerton, the New
England trader, obtained a site for his warehouse with sufficient
depth of water to enable the coasting craft to come up to it;
while upon the other side of the little cove lay the boats and
scows of the ferry to Breucktyn.
At the mention of the name of Isaac Allerton, every New
Yorker of aristocratic proclivities feels, or at any rate might
332 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
be expected to feel, a thrill of pride. Isaac Allerton was not,
it is true, a permanent resident of New Amsterdam, but he
spent much of his time at his establishment there ; and when
the Dutch authorities wished to raise money from him by
imposts or contributions, they invariably spoke of him as an
old and highly respected citizen. New York is relieved from
the painful necessity of having to contemplate from a position
of hopeless inferiority the exaltation of New England. In
Isaac Allerton is the one small trickling stream of blue blood
which flows to New York from the Pilgrims of the " May-
flower," " that blessed band of the First Ship," as one of their
numerous historians handsomely calls them. Isaac Allerton
is, as it were, the little leaven which leavens the whole New
York lump; and all New Yorkers have part and parcel in
him : —
" Auch ich war in Arcadien geboren. "
In considering the life of Isaac Allerton, or Alderton, — as
he is occasionally called, — we go, as we are accustomed to
regard it, very far back into the past. Born in 1585, in
the county of Suffolk in England, perhaps, — who knows ? —
where the little village of Alderton, from its low rise of
ground between the marshes of the Aide and the Deben,
looks out to the southeastward upon the German Ocean, he
was old enough to have remembered seeing the ceaseless
march of the squads of volunteers, as they streamed through
Ipswich on their way to the muster at Tilbury, to fight for
England against the Spanish host on the great Armada, and
in the Duke of Parma's transports. Perhaps, too, he had rec-
ollections of that summer day when every hill-top along the
shore of Suffolk was thronged with people watching the far-
off cloud of Spanish galleons as they hurried northwards to
escape the ships of Howard and Drake, while the alarm bells
from the village churches were answering each other in all
directions, and beacon-fires were blazing all along the coast.
His associations may well, indeed, have gone still farther
back. People of the second preceding generation could have
ISAAC ALLERTON
333
told him — and doubtless often did tell him — of the dark
days in Suffolk under Bishop Bonner's persecutions, in the
time of Queen Mary, for the Allertons were of good Protes-
tant stock, and interested in these things ; Ralph Allerton
and three companions were burned together at the stake,
at Islington, in 1557, for shocking Bishop Bonner's religious
sense by reading the proscribed " Communion Book."
All Suffolk in Allerton's younger days was full of stories
and reminiscences of the persecutions. Historic Hadleigh
was not very far away, whose good vicar, Doctor Rowland
Taylor, having been tried for heresy in London, was sent
down into Suffolk to be burned at the stake in his own
parish, as a wholesome example to his parishioners ; and the
Suffolk people still told with reverence that pathetic story
which through three centuries and more has never yet lost its
pathos :
" Coming within two miles of Hadleigh, he desired to
light off his horse, which done he leaped and set a frisk
or twain as men commonly do for dancing. ' Why, master
doctor,' quoth the sheriff, 'how do you now?' He an-
swered, 1 Well, God be praised, Master Sheriff, never better ;
for now I know I am almost at home. I lack not past two
stiles to go over, and I am even at my Father's house ! ' " . . .
At last, " ' What place is this,' he asked, 4 and what
meaneth it that so much people are gathered together ? ' It
was answered, 4 It is Oldham Common, the place where you
must suffer, and the people are come to look upon you.'
Then said he, 4 Thanked be God, I am even at home ! ' "
It was with early associations such as these that Isaac
Allerton came, together with his wife Mary, and his three
children, Bartholomew, Remember, and Mary, to Plymouth
with the first colonists, in 1620. Of his history prior to
that time but little is known. He was evidently a man of
business experience, for soon after the landing he was chosen
" assistant," or what might be called lieutenant-governor
under Governor Bradford; he was, moreover, a man of some
means, for he is mentioned as one of the wealthiest of the
334 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
colonists. His thatched dwelling-house on the south side of
Leyden Street in Plymouth, opposite that of Governor Brad-
ford, is shown with what is probably a substantial degree of
accuracy in the imaginary view of old Plymouth painted by
Mr. W. L. Williams. Its site is now apparently occupied by
the later Market Street, but the " delicate spring " at the
rear of his house lot still flows into the old Town Brook as
it did when he first drank of its waters. His name is com-
memorated in one of the principal streets of Plymouth, and
it is upon Allerton Street that the noble monument to the
Pilgrims stands.
Isaac Allerton was not exempted from the early trials of
the Plymouth Colonists ; scarcely more than two months had
elapsed from the landing, when his wife succumbed to the
hardships of her life in the colony. Five years afterwards,
in 1626, he married for his second wife the daughter of Elder
William Brewster,1 by whom he had a son, Isaac, who, as
well as his father, figures in the history of New Amsterdam.
Allerton soon became engaged in trading ventures, — at first
along the northeastern coast, as it would seem, — but these
were not always successful; and in 1633 a trading house
which he had at Machias, on the Maine coast, was destroyed
by the French. Soon after this period he seems to have
turned his attention to the southwestern coast and to the in-
creasing importance of the Dutch trade at New Amsterdam.
His ties at Plymouth had become loosened by the death of
his second wife in 1633, and soon after the establishment of
the New Haven colony, in 1638, we find him a resident of that
place, where in 1646 he married his third wife, Joanna.2
In the mean time Isaac Allerton's trading operations had
led him at an early date to New Amsterdam, where he was
1 Fear Brewster, according to some of the biographers, but in the Plymouth
list the same person seems to be designated by the name of " Love." Besides this
lady and Remember Allerton, that list contains the curious names of Desire
Winter, Wrestling Brewster, Humility Cooper, Resolved White, and Oceanus
Hopkins.
2 It was this lady who, some time after the death of her husband, is said to
have given shelter to the fugitive regicides, Goffe and Whnlley.
ALLERTON'S WAREHOUSE
335
soon brought into intimate business relations with the Dutch
trader, Govert Loockermans. As early as 1642 we find him
negotiating a sale to Loockermans and to one Cornells Leen-
dertsen, for the sum of 1100 carolus guilders (equivalent to
about $450) of his bark " The Hope," reserving the right of
a return voyage in her to the Rodeberch, or Red Hill, as the
Dutch called New Haven. In the next year, he and Loock-
ermans jointly took a grant from the Director and Council of
a parcel of ground on the east side of the present Broadway,
a short distance north of Beaver Street, which ground, as has
already been observed,1 may have been intended as a site for a
warehouse, but which was never used for such a purpose,
having been sold by the grantees within a few years after its
acquisition.
As early as 164G or 1647, however, Allerton had made
arrangements to establish a permanent trading house in New
Amsterdam, which was under the immediate supervision of a
clerk or agent, George Woolsey, from Yarmouth in England.
He had purchased, for this purpose, from Philip de Truy, the
owner,2 a parcel of land, being a narrow strip lying between
the road and the East River shore and containing more than
five hundred feet of water frontage. At the southern end this
parcel of ground contained but a few feet in width ; at its north-
ern end, however, where it abutted upon the little haven al-
ready spoken of, which, long ago filled up, forms the modern
Peck Slip, it was of much greater width ; and here, after a little
docking out and filling, Isaac Allerton built his warehouse, a
capacious two-story building, the appearance of which has,
without doubt, been preserved to us by the Labadist mis-
sionaries, Danker and Sluyter, in their view of New
York in 1679. The warehouse would appear to have very
nearly occupied the sites of the present buildings, Nos. 8
and 10 Peck Slip.
Here, then, for a number of years the old Puritan mer-
chant carried on his commercial transactions, making fre-
1 See ante, page 237.
2 The deed bears date, April 10, 1647.
336 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
quent journeys backwards and forwards from his house at
New Haven. Besides being at times quite largely interested
in trade with the Netherlands and in dealings directly with
the West India Company, a great part of the commerce be-
tween New Netherland and the New England colonies passed
through his hands. His warehouse here upon the East River
became the resort of most of the English doing business in
New Amsterdam ; and here, doubtless, many profound dis-
cussions took place respecting the powers of the monarch and
of the parliament ; of " Divine Right," and of "The Good Old
Cause ; " of the trial of King Charles and of the doings of
Oliver Cromwell. " Allerton's Building " in fact was a prom-
inent feature of the town ; and in the autumn of 1656, we find
George Woolsey, who was still residing at the house, making
a petition to the burgomasters for permission to retail wine
and beer there, " as many strangers apply to him for lodgings."
A license was refused at first, but was finally granted " for
one year, as he has been at trouble, but not permanently, as
being at too great a distance, and therefore suspect."
The warehouse, too, was occasionally used in part at least
for other purposes than those of commerce. In November,
1654, it was hired by the burgomasters for the temporary re-
ception of fifty boys and girls sent over from the almshouse
at Amsterdam, — an experiment by the magistrates of that
city. These children were to be bound out for the term of
five years, after which period each was to receive fifty -three
acres of land. Nor was Allerton's warehouse devoid of his-
torical associations. When the Indians landed, in large
numbers, upon Manhattan Island, on the 15th of September,
1655, in the absence of Director-General Stuyvesant and of
his soldiers, who had started a few days before upon their ex-
pedition against the Swedes on the Delaware River, one of the
first points at which they commenced their work of violence was
at this warehouse. " They ran in large armed parties through
the streets," says Van Tienhoven, in his report to the Coun-
cil, " violently attacked the house of Mr. Allerton, knocking
the lock from his door, beating his servants, and ransacking
ATTACK ON THE WAREHOUSE
337
his premises, on pretence of searching for two Indians."
There is indeed no telling to what lengths the Indians might
have proceeded upon this occasion, for they were in number
five or six hundred, and all of this portion of the town was in
their power. They observed, however, that the guns of a
Dutch ship commanded by Captain Scharborgh, which lay in
the East River opposite Allerton's Warehouse, were being
brought to bear upon the spot. A panic seized them, and
they scurried away into the " Kreupelbosch " and behind the
hill back of Thomas Hall's house, to get out of range of the
guns in the vessel. It is quite probable that these depreda-
tions by the natives led to the subsequent construction of
palisades around Allerton's place, for in the " Duke's Plan "
of 1661, the building appears to stand in an enclosure.
As Isaac Allerton advanced in years, he seems to have
withdrawn more and more from active business at New Am-
sterdam, his son Isaac Allerton, Junior, taking his place.
This young man, who at the time of the building of his
father's warehouse at New Amsterdam must have been a
student at the then newly established Harvard College, where
he graduated in or about the year 1650, we find in occasional
charge of his father's commercial interests as early as 1653.
The elder Allerton, however, never lost interest in the foster-
ing of trade and intercourse between New England and New
Netherland, and upon more than one occasion he is found
mediating, or even giving his own personal guarantee, for
the sake of avoiding quarrels between his countrymen and the
Dutch of New Amsterdam. He died at New Haven in the
early part of the year 1659, and on the 16th of December of
that year on the application of his son Isaac, we find the
burgomasters of New Amsterdam appointing his old business
associate Govert Loockermans, together with Captain Paulus
Leendertsen van der Grift, George Woolsey, and John Law-
rence, curators of his estate in New Amsterdam.1 Whether
1 Isaac Allerton's youngest daughter, Mary, who married Elder Cushman,
died at a great age, in 1G99, and is believed by some of the historians of Ply-
mouth to have been tbe last survivor of the " Mayflower " colonists.
22
338 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the New England trade was still carried on at the warehouse
after Isaac Allerton's decease, and if so, in whose hands it
remained, are matters about which there is much obscurity.
The building itself was standing many years after the death
of its original owner, and towards the close of the seventeenth
century it had come into the possession of the Beeckmans,
who owned the property upon the opposite side of the road,
or the modern Pearl Street.
With the exception of the wooded swamp, of four or five
acres in area, known as Bestevaers Kreupelbosch, which, as
has been previously stated, was never made the subject of a
grant by the Dutch government, all the land lying between
Isaac Allerton's warehouse and the meadow called Wolphert
Gerritsen's Vly (which with the small stream flowing through
it known as the Versche Water, or sometimes as the Old Kill,
formed the northern boundary of that portion of Manhattan
Island pertaining more especially to the town of New Am-
sterdam) composed originally a farm of about thirty-five acres,
which, when it is first brought to our notice, about the year
1640, had been partly cleared and cultivated by David Pro-
voost. This tract extended back from the river to the Com-
mon Pasture, now the City Hall Park, and its area, now densely-
crowded, in part with great office, factory, and newspaper
buildings, in part with squalid tenements of a river-side pop-
ulation, may be said roughly to extend from the modern
Ferry and Ann streets about to the present James Street.
Near the river shore stood Provoost's humble farmhouse, at
a point which is believed to be in the interior of the block
between the modern Pearl and Water streets, Dover Street, and
Peck Slip. East of the house and extending from the river
shore up to the present Franklin Square, of which it covered
the site as well as that of the modern Dover Street, was a
small cherry and apple orchard, long afterwards famous as
" the Cherry Garden," the trees of which may very likely have
been set out by Provoost himself. Two centuries and a half
after their planting they are still commemorated by the
THE LOOCKERMANS FARM
339
Cherry Street of the present day, — little suggestive of the
fragrant white blossoms of the old seventeenth-century
orchard. At David Provoost's farmhouse the road or track
along the East River terminated, in his day ; whether the
ferry to Long Island was established here during his occu-
pancy we cannot tell, but after he had left the farm (which
he had probably held as a tenant of the West India Com-
pany), it was granted on the 26th of March, 1642, to two
men, — to Govert Loockerrnans, the merchant, and to one
Cornelis Leendertsen, — who undoubtedly purchased the
property with the direct intention of maintaining the ferry
here. The description of the farm as given in the deed to
these two purchasers presents such a curious picture of the
condition at that early day of that portion of the modern city
which has been designated above; that a translation of it,
with some parenthetical explanations, may be not uninter-
esting : it is described as " a dwelling house on the East
River, together with the land thereto belonging, as the
same is fenced in by David Provoost, which fencing
begins at a brook of fresh water emptying itself into the
East River " (the outlet of the Kolck Pond, the course of
which ran irregularly along the present Roosevelt and James
streets), " till to the land of Cornelis van Tienhoven"
(which lay south of the present Ann Street ; and Provoost's
fence towards it skirted generally the modern Chatham and
Nassau streets), " whose palisades, extending from the long
highway " (present Broadway) " towards the East River "
(along present Ann Street), " as may be seen by the marks by
him made " (the fence of Van Tienhoven being evidently not
as yet completed), " bordering on the aforesaid lands from the
fence till to the great tree" (at the intersection of Ann and
Gold streets), " which is the right division line between the
land of Philip de Truy and Tienhoven ; the said Philip ex-
tending his palisades from the said tree northeast by east and
east northeast between both " (that is, midway between these
two courses and along the present Gold Street), " till to Bes-
tevaers Kreupelbosch" (the well-known modern "Swamp"
340 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
of Jacob Street and of the leather trade), " and from the
East River northwest and north northwest" (along Ferry
Street), " till to the same swamp." The fact that " the
Swamp " itself did not pass under this description evidently
shows that at this time Provoost had fenced around it, prob-
ably for the purpose of keeping his cattle out of its muddy
depths. The rear portions of this farm, towards the present
Chatham Street, were, it is also evident, only partly cleared of
timber at the time of this grant.
Of the actual establishment of the Long Island Ferry on
Loockermans' and Leendertsen's farm but little is known,
except that it was under the control of Cornells Dircksen
(usually spoken of as the first ferryman), as early as the fall
of 1642. That there should have been some earlier regular
means of communication with the Long Island plantations,
which were established several years prior to the last-men-
tioned date, would seem altogether probable, but nothing in
relation to the matter has come to us. The location of the
ferry was the outcome of natural conditions which prevailed ;
the most feasible road to the river, upon the Long Island side,
being down the ravine or depression which marked the course
of the modern Fulton Street, and the landing-place upon
Manhattan Island being directly opposite the termination of
the Breucklyn road, and at nearly the narrowest part of the
East River. As for Cornelis Dircksen, the ferryman, he
possessed a farm upon the north side of the present Fulton
Street, near the ferry, upon the Long Island side of the
river, and this he was, doubtless, actively engaged in clearing
and cultivating at this time, for although the ferry and its
appurtenances were under his control, as already stated, he
does not appear to have been occupied, during much of the
time, in its actual management, for as early as 1643 he had
leased it to Captain Willem Tomassen. A house and landing-
place being also required for ferry purposes on the New
Amsterdam side of the river, it is quite evident that Loocker-
mans' house and the land in its vicinity was hired for those
purposes, but whether the building was used exclusively by
THE LONG ISLAND FERRY
341
the ferryman and his employees, or whether it was partly
used for purposes of the farm, is not ascertained. At some
time prior to the year 1646, Loockermans' associate,
Cornells Leendertsen, died, and Dirck Cornelissen, who seems
to have been his son, had taken his place ; other " partners "
in the Netherlands are spoken of in some papers executed by
Loockermans and Dirck Cornelissen about this time, but this
may refer merely to others of Cornells Leendertsen's heirs.
It was at this period that Govert Loockermans and Dirck
Cornelissen, after reserving the farmhouse and a parcel of
ground of irregular shape, lying to the east of it and embrac-
ing three acres or more of land, disposed of the rest of the
farm in the following manner : The land lying between the
farmhouse and Allerton's warehouse (then probably just in
course of erection), was sold to one William Goulder. This
parcel, which covered nearly two acres of ground, ran " from
the height next the Strand " back to Bestevaers Kreupelbosch ;
and its easterly line seems to have about crossed the site of
the present Harper building, near Franklin Square ; along its
foot on the " Strand " (no longer following the present Pearl
Street), ran the road to Loockermans' farmhouse, and to the
ferry.
Another parcel of ground sold by Loockermans and
Cornelissen at this time was at the farthest extremity of
their land along the East River, where there was a long, nar-
row strip of upland lying between the river shore and the
meadow, called Wolpherts Vly ; around its terminal point, the
brook known as the " Old Kill " emptied into the East River,
not far from the line of the modern James Street. This point
of land, not more than one hundred and seventy feet in width
at its widest part, and gradually diminishing throughout its
length of about three hundred and sixty feet, ahnost to a
mere point at its northeasterly termination, was sold to an
Englishman named George Cleer. At the same time also,
the balance of the Loockermans' farm was leased for ten years
to Hendrick Pietersen van Hasselt, a farmer who had been
one of the first tenants of the West India Company's bouwery
342 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
lying west of the common pasture, or modern City Hall Park.
This man occupied a small house of his own on the Heerewegh,
or Broadway, just outside of the " Land Poort," or gate at
Wall Street, and was a well-known character of the town,
who bore the whimsical appellation of Kint in 't Water, or
"Child-in-the-Water."
If Loockermans and Cornelissen had any expectations that
the neighborhood of their East River farm was to be improved
by the grants they made to William Goulder and to George
Cleer, in 1646, they were doomed to disappointment. Neither
of these men seems to have made any attempt to build upon
the lands purchased by them. There are traces of Goulder's
occupation of his parcel as late as 1649, after Avhich no
further reference to him is met with.1 George Cleer was living
as late as 1660, when he took part in forming the first settle-
ment of the town of Rye, in Westchester County ; whether
his design in purchasing this remote corner of land on the
Loockermans' farm was to establish potteries or a mill there,
as was afterwards done by others, we can only conjecture.
At all events, both his parcel of ground and that of Goulder
are soon found to have returned into Loockermans' possession,
very probably by virtue of mortgages which he held upon
them.
Through his marriage with the widow of Dirck Cornelissen,
in 1649, Govert Loockermans had come into complete pos-
session of the East River farm. In 1653 he sold the farm-
house, with its garden, orchard, etc., to the then newly appointed
ferry-master, Eghbert van Borsum, who was the owner of the
premises at the time of our survey. This man, who was the
son of Jan van Borsum, of Embden, in East Friesland, an
ancient town under German rule but with many Dutch char-
acteristics, had come to New Netherland at a comparatively
early date, where, in 1639, he married Annetje Hendrickse,
of Amsterdam. He seems to have been engaged in the
coasting trade, and in 1647 was master of the " yacht "
1 lie may have been the person called William Goulding, whom we find in
1661 at Gravesend, L. I.
VAN BORSUM, THE FERRYMAN 343
Prins Willem. He was, moreover, on good terms with Direc-
tor-General Stuyvesant, and in 1649 reported to that official
certain hard things which the latter' s enemy, Cornells Melyn,
had said ahont him at New Haven, with which Van Borsum
claimed to have been greatly shocked.1 Perhaps it was in
return for these good offices that in the fall of 1652 Eghbert
received the appointment of ferry-master to Long Island ; and
in the old farmhouse he kept a tavern, where many a thirsty
passenger has refreshed himself before or after braving the
perils of a journey across the East River in one of Eghbert' s
scows. Although the office of ferryman was no sinecure, —
since by the regulations of 1654 he had to hold himself in
readiness to transport across the river any passengers that
might offer themselves between the hours of five o'clock in
the morning and eight in the evening in summer, and from
seven till five in the winter,2 — yet Eghbert seems to have
found it a lucrative one, and at about the time of our survey,
or towards the close of the year 1655, he was actively engaged
in building a new house for himself on the Breucklyn side.
The old house and the ferry seem to have remained in
Van Borsum's hands for several years longer, but by
1670 they had returned into the possession of Govert
Loockermans.
At the period of our survey, the ferry-house was no longer
the outpost in this direction, of New Amsterdam. In 1653, at
about the time of the sale to Eghbert van Borsum, Loocker-
mans had sold another parcel of land, lying to the eastward of
Van Borsum's garden and orchard, to Henry Brazier, fre-
quently spoken of by the Dutch as Herry Breser. Brazier
was an Englishman from the shire of Essex, and is found in
New Amsterdam as early as 1644, in which year he married
Susanna, the widow of William Watkyns. He appears to
have been a tobacco-planter, and had a tract of about thirty-
two acres of land upon Long Island, somewhat north of
1 See ante, pnge 115.
2 The curious reservation was made, "not during tempests, or when the mill
has given way."
344 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
the ferry,1 and nearly opposite the land which he acquired of
Loockermans. This plot, purchased from Loockermans, seems
to have extended along the river from the ferryman's garden
a distance of about two hundred and ninety English feet, to a
point about seventy or eighty feet west of the present Roosevelt
Street. From the shore it ran back from two hundred to two
hundred and fifty feet to a line a short distance north of the
present Cherry Street. The continuation of the ferryman's
road still ran along the beach to give access to Brazier's place,
and there is evidence that his house stood close to the shore
at a spot a few feet east of the present Dover Street, and south
of Cherry Street. Brazier had hardly established himself at
this place when, in the summer of 1654, the Dutch in New
Amsterdam were thrown into a great state of excitement by
the intelligence that an English fleet sent by Cromwell had
arrived in New England in the war then being carried on
between England and the Netherlands, and that preparations
were being made there for an attack on New Amsterdam.
Henry Brazier, suspected by his Dutch neighbors, may have
found his position an irksome one, or he may have considered
the Dutch chances for successful resistance as hopeless, and
may therefore have started off to acquire the merit of a timely
submission to the anticipated new regime. At any rate he
quitted New Amsterdam, — in all probability with his f amily, —
although in doing so at such a time he violated one of Direc-
tor-General Stuyvesant's ordinances. As peace, however, was
soon afterwards declared between England and the Nether-
lands, Brazier found himself somewhat amiss in his calcula-
tions. He returned to New Amsterdam in 1655, much crest-
fallen, but Stuyvesant and the Council received him in high
dudgeon, and made an order on the 5th of May of that year,
that "Harry Bresar, who left in the time of the troubles,
despite the notices, is to be allowed to return to settle his
affairs, but not to become domiciliated." It took Brazier so
1 Oddly enough, Mr. D. T. Valentine, and a host of those who have followed
him, have transferred this land to the other side of the river, " in the vicinity of
the present Franklin Square."
DIRCK THE POT-BAKER
345
long to settle his affairs, however, that ten years afterwards
he is found quietly residing here with his wife and family of
four young daughters. The wrath of the Dutch was, as a
rule, not of long duration, and Brazier probably had little
difficulty in making his peace with them.
In 1653, Govert Loockermans disposed of the remaining
parcel of the shore front of his farm along the East River
(being the same parcel which in 1641 he had conveyed to
George Cleer) to another Englishman, a Londoner named
Thomas Stevenson. Stevenson about this time had recently
been engaged in farming some land across the East River,
and may have desired, as did many of the other Long Island
farmers, to acquire a place of residence in New Amsterdam
within the protection of the fort and garrison, and yet as near
as possible to their farming lands. He built at once upon
this point of land, but in the next year he left to take part in
the newly established settlement of Middelburgh, the later
Newtown on Long Island, selling his property upon the point,
which then seems to have contained two buildings, probably
of a rather humble description, to Willem Pietersen de Groot,
a Dutchman from Haerlem, and to Jan Peeck, the latter of
whom does not appear further in connection with the prop-
erty. Willem Pietersen, however, soon leased the premises
to a man who spent many years of his life there, and who
purchased the place in 1657, a short time after the period of
our survey. This was Dirck Claessen, from Leeuwerden, the
capital city of the province of Friesland, in the Netherlands.
He was more commonly known as Dirck de Pottebaker, or
" the potter," and it seems quite probable that he carried on
his potteries at this place, his house being near the shore, and
very near the present Roosevelt Street. Life was not all
eau-de-cologne and rose leaves at that spot, any more in the
seventeenth century than it is at the present day. The neigh-
bors were not at all harmonious. Mrs. Brazier's patience
was sorely tried by the pot-baker's hogs which frequently
ravaged her garden, insomuch that she represents to the
burgomasters that she " suffers great damage, and has to have
346 NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS PEOPLE
one of her children constantly in attendance." Nevertheless,
the Braziers bore no malice, and when, not long afterwards,,
Dirck had had a serious falling out with his wife, a widow
whom he had espoused a short time before, we find the deacons
of the Dutch Church informing the magistrates that " Dirck
Claessen, Pottebacker, has driven away his wife, and that the
aforesaid woman suffers great want, and lies on straw without
bed or bedding, at Mr. Herry Bresar's house at the ferry,
by the fresh water, and has the ague, and that her husband
will not allow sufficient for her support."
The road or track along the East River shore, less and less
travelled as it extended beyond the ferry, till finally trodden
mainly by Dirck Claessen and his hogs, terminated at that
worthy's dwelling. Two or three years after the time of our
survey, or in 1658, Abraham Pietersen, the miller, had thrown
a dam across the little brook of the " Fresh Water," and near
the present James and Cherry streets had built a tide-mill,
which he used for a few years, till the neighboring residents
made complaint of Iris dam throwing back salt water into the
Kolck pond. In 1655, however, Dirck Claessen's house upon
the Point was the Ultima Thule of New Amsterdam. Behind
it lay the lonely salt meadow of Wolfpherts Vly, and before
it stretched the lonely expanse of the East River. The wild
ducks swam along the shore without much fear of molestation ;
gulls skimmed along the surface of the water ; the fish-hawk
sailed in graceful circles high above it, or shot down into it
after his prey, like an arrow from a bow ; and crows stalked
along in search of dainties over the shingly beach, which
stretched away towards the northeast, at the foot of the low
bluffs, till at the distance of a mile or more it curved to the
left and disappeared around the tumbled boulders of Corlaers
Hoek.
APPENDIX I
THE JUSTUS DANCKERS VIEW OF NEW AMSTERDAM
1 FTER the completion of the text of the present work, there
came into the possession of the author a view of New Am-
sterdam of more than ordinary interest. It is an old litho-
graph, eight by eleven and one-half inches in size, and purports to
be copied from an ancient etching of the same size, published by
Justus Danckers at Amsterdam. Like the " Hartgers View,"
alluded to in a previous note, the authenticity of this view is
vouched for by the fact that it is a reverse. The date given to the
print is "about the year 1640," but as a matter of fact it repre-
sents a period about ten years later than that date. It was pub-
lished by Henry R. Robinson of New York, at some date appar-
ently between the years 1836 and 1842.
Upon reversing this view, it is found to correspond quite closely
in its general appearance with the well-known " Vanderdonck
View," but upon a minute examination, the points of dissimilarity
are found to be numerous. These lead to the conclusion that the
view is either the original camera obscura sketch (supposed to have
been taken by Augustyn Heermans) from which the " Vander-
donck View " was prepared, and that the differences are caused by
carelessness in the reversing and copying of that sketch ; or else
that the Danckers view is a different and independent one taken
from about the same point, — upon the northwesterly part of Gov-
ernor's Island, — and at somewhere about the same period.
Several of the topographical features of the town are brought
out with much greater distinctness upon this Danckers view than
on the " Vanderdonck View." Some of these are as follows:
1. The old storehouse of the West India Company, which occu-
pied a part of the present Whitehall Street, is shown with great
distinctness, occupying, in fact, almost the central point of the
348
APPENDIX I
picture. Whitehall Street itself is shown to have occupied a
shallow depression or ravine running down to the East River.
2. The course of the modern Broad Street, with Cornells
Melyn's house and outbuildings occupying a portion of it, is
clearly shown.
3. The ravine of "Burger's Path," leading down to the river
side, can be distinguished without difficulty.
4. A curious structure with a conical or pyramidal roof, which,
from the perspective of the " Vanderdonck View," appears to be
a hay barrack at a great distance, and has always been a puzzling
feature in that view, is shown in the Danckers etching as just
peeping over a small rise of ground back of the " Great Tavern,"
and is at once determined beyond any reasonable doubt to be the
low belfry tower attached to the old Bark Mill, in which the first
church services were held, and of which previous mention has
already been made in the text of this work.
5. The extreme right and left of the Danckers etching remain
in an unfinished condition, just as the artist probably left it upon
terminating his camera sketch. The shore of the East River, in-
stead of turning around the fort in the direction of the Hudson,
is continued indefinitely in a straight line. At the left-hand
corner of the etching (being at the right of the true view), is what
appears to be an almost mountainous elevation of land, which of
course could never have occupied that spot. This was evidently
a misconception of the artist's rough lines of the foliage of the
thick clump of trees which is well known to have occupied the site of
the present Hanover Square and its vicinity, upon the river bank.
Some difficulties in respect to the buildings in the Danckers
View are encountered. The old church building upon the water
side is by no means shown as clearly as it is in the Vanderdonck
View ; on the contrary, the houses seem at this point to be thrown
forwards towards the river shore into a position which they could
not have actually occupied. This leads to the conclusion that the
Danckers View was a panoramic one, i. e. , the point of view was
changed, in order to make the houses in the vicinity of the " Great
Tavern" show in better perspective. It appears to have been
just at the site of the old church where the two views have been
joined together, and the joining of the views has been so unskil-
fully performed that the church has been distorted or entirely
concealed.
APPENDIX I
349
A curious feature of the Danckers etching is that it contains
the silly addition of the sprawling human figure suspended by the
waist from the crane upon the river side, as also another figure
dangling from the adjacent gallows. Instances of capital punish-
ment actually carried into effect at New Amsterdam are very rare,
— so far, at any rate, as the records show, — and are mostly
confined to cases arising in the garrison of the fort, or in the naval
service, and the body of a criminal swinging from the gallows
could never have been an ordinary sight. If Heermans was
indeed the artist of this view, it is very probable that the addi-
tion of the figures was made by way of lampoon upon Director-
General Stuyvesant's administration, Heermans being at this time
in high enmity with the Director and with the Secretary Van Tien-
hoven. Upon the published view of Vanderdonck, the figures
did not appear; but in the much later nondescript sketch, of little
worth, sometimes called the " Montanus View," they do appear, the
gallows being garnished in that view with no less than three
imaginary culprits.
APPENDIX II
THE DESCENDANTS OF CORNELIS MELYN
TTT may be not without interest to prosecute a few inquiries as
JJ^ to the descendants of Cornelis Melyn, whose career at New
Amsterdam has been dwelt upon at some length in the text
of this work (pages 94 to 125), and whom the author is inclined
more and more to regard as the central figure of his day in New
Netherland.
When Cornelis Melyn brought his family to New Amsterdam
about the year 1641, it consisted of his wife Jannetje and three
children, so far as we can learn. Of these his daughter Cornelia
was at this time about thirteen years of age, and she seems to
have been the eldest of the children. A son whose name is not
furnished to us is said to have been drowned in the wreck of the
"Princess " in 1647, when as a lad he was accompanying his
father to the Netherlands, and the third of Melyn's children
appears to have been his son Jacob, who reached years of
maturity.
After the Melyns reached New Amsterdam, three of their chil-
dren were baptized in the Dutch Church there; namely, Susanna,
on the 14th of June, 1643; Magdaleen, on the 3d of March, 1645;
and Isaac, on the 22d of July, 1646. Of the first two of these
we have no further information, and they may have died young;
but Isaac grew up, and was long a resident of New York. It
has been shown in that portion of this work which is above
alluded to, that, persecuted and harassed by Director Stuyve-
sant for the part he had taken in the affairs of New Netherland,
Cornelis Melyn retired with his son Jacob, in 1657, to the New
Haven Colony, and that there, together with his son, he took the
oath of allegiance to the English government. Although he oc-
casionally visited New Amsterdam during the next five or six
years, he appears to have maintained his residence at New
APPENDIX II
351
Haven, but of the details of his life there we are ignorant; they
would undoubtedly be interesting, if known, and might indeed
form an important chapter in the history of the English conquest
of New York in 1664, for Cornelis Melyn was a man who was
most tenacious and unflinching in his purposes, and there is not
the least reason to suppose that he had forgotten Stuyvesant's
treatment of himself. Certain it is that from some reason he
was jealously watched to the last, both by Stuyvesant and by the
officers of the West India Company in the Netherlands. If, how-
ever, he had on foot any machinations against the rule of the
West India Company, we have no reason to believe that he lived
to see them carried out, for no allusions to him can be found
later than about the beginning of the year 1663.
In the mean time Melyn's oldest daughter Cornelia and her
young brother Isaac remained in New Amsterdam, as did also
(for a large portion of the time, at any rate) Melyn's wife
Jannetje. Cornelia Melyn, as already stated, had married, in
1647, Captain Jacobus Loper, and he, after a short married
life, having died, leaving her a widow with two children, Jacobus
and Jannetje, she married, on the 7th of April, 1653, Jacobus
Schellinger of Amsterdam.
The Schellingers of Amsterdam were at this time a well-to-do
family, who seem to have been quite largely engaged in mercan-
tile affairs. Some of them were noticeably men of thrift, and
the author's attention has been called to the "Kohier," or Assess-
ment list of Amsterdam for the year 1631, upon which such a
man as Kiliaen van Rensselaer appears assessed for 50,000 florins
only; while Hillebrant Schellinger, "out schepen," is assessed at
70,000; Cornelis Gerritsz Schellinger for 70,000, and Cornelis
Schellinger the elder at 36,000 florins.
Jacobus Schellinger was likewise engaged in mercantile business
at New Amsterdam, where he is said to have come in the interest
of an uncle at Amsterdam, whose name, as would appear from
allusions in some of the records, was Pieter Toom. Schellinger
seems to have resided in New Amsterdam for a period of some
twelve or thirteen years after his marriage to Cornelia Melyn or
Loper, in 1653. During that period he had four children bap-
tized in the Dutch Church; namely, Willem, on March 8, 1654;
Catalyntje or Catherine, on April 19, 1656; Abraham, on Sept.
20, 1662; and Daniel, on Juiy 19, 1665. The name of Jacobus
852
APPENDIX II
Schellinger does not, it is true, appear in the assessment list of
the town in April, 1665, but that of Cornelis Melyn does, though
there is much reason to believe that he was not living at this
time; and there seems to be but little doubt that it is the Melyn
property which is referred to in the list, and that this property
was in the occupation of the Melyn family, including Jacobus
Schellinger and his wife and children.
Of the immediate descendants of Cornelis Melyn we have seen
(page 125 of this work) that his youngest son Isaac had died
prior to 1722, leaving only one child by his wife Temperance,
daughter of William Loveridge of Albany; namely, Joanna, wife
of Jonathan Dickinson. Jacob Melyn, the oldest son, married
and had several children baptized in the Dutch Church ; namely,
Susanna and Jacob, on Oct. 3, 1674; and Daniel, Samuel, and
Abigail on Aug. 7, 1677. This baptizing of his children in
groups, so to speak, would seem to indicate that Jacob and his
family were sojourning at times away from New York. He
removed to Boston in his latter years, as previously stated,
and no information has been obtained as to whether his name
or lineage still continues.
Of Cornelis Melyn's daughter Cornelia, however, the descend-
ants are still living in considerable number. She, with her hus-
band, Jacobus Schellinger, and with her children, remained, as it
would seem, in New York until 1666 or 1667, when they removed
to the English settlement of Easthampton upon the eastern ex-
tremity of Long Island.
The causes which led a distinctively Dutch family to quit their
associations of many years and the society of their countrymen,
for the purpose of taking up their residence in a purely English
community, and the reasons why these new-comers were unhesi-
tatingly accepted among a people proud of their English birth or
descent, not particularly desirous of additions to their organiza-
tion, and abundantly disposed to scrutinize rigidly all new appli-
cations for membership, on account of the questions of the
rights in commonage which were involved, would undoubtedly
be, if fully known, an interesting episode in the history of the
colonization of the New York towns. That the full details of
this affair would throw light upon the mutual relations, now little
understood, of Cornelis Melyn, Govert Loockermans, Isaac Aller-
ton, and perhaps Jacob Steendam, with each other and with the
APPENDIX II
353
New Haven and Connecticut colonies, there cannot be much
question. The Easthampton settlement was a distinct depend-
ency of the mainland colonies, Governors Eaton of New Haven
and Hopkins of Connecticut having made the original Indian
purchase in 1648, as trustees for the settlers. The trading as
well as the political relations were close between the new settle-
ment and New Haven, and it was doubtless through New Haven
that the attention of the Melyn family was directed to East-
hampton; the immediate cause of their breaking up the
domestic arrangements which had so long prevailed is quite
likely to have been the fact that the two sons of Cornells Melyn
had now grown up to manhood and were perhaps desirous of
establishing themselves upon their small patrimony in New
York.
Whatever the causes may have been, we find Jacobus Schel-
linger in October, 16G7, purchasing from one Benjamin Conkling
the rights or a part of them which had previously pertained to an
earlier colonist, Andrew Miller, whose "home lot" (now acquired
by Schellinger) was a capacious plot of about twenty acres situ-
ated upon the north side of the main street of Easthampton, about
in the middle of the present village.
As the family of Jacobus Schellinger, on their journey down
to Easthampton, emerged from the two or three miles of wood-
land road which lay between their new home and the sloop which
had brought them to the " Three-Mile Harbor," — the port of East-
hampton in Gardiner's Bay, — they could see before them the
fields of the new settlement, stretching in long strips, as at the
present day, towards the dark oak woods which surrounded them,
and could doubtless hear, as one may hear now, the quail piping to
one another in the solitary back lots. Sixteen or seventeen years
of cultivation had checkered the plain with alternating patches
of wheat and rye, of maize and tobacco, and near the houses
here and there a young orchard was growing up, or upon spots of
greensward, the flax lay rotting in long brownish rows. Along
the capacious village street, lined by a couple of score of low
thatched cottages (some probably still of their original log con-
struction), no rows of great elms stretched as at present, but the
grass grew thickly in its broad space where perhaps the cattle,
just returned from the Common Pasture, gathered at their owners'
bars and gates, or at the farther end of the street crowded to
23
354
APPENDIX II
drink at the Town Pond. Upon the grassy bank (designed for a
burial-ground) beyond the pond stood the little thatched church,
and still farther in the distance, beyond the green slopes of the
"Calf Pasture/* the white sand dunes shut out the ocean.
Here Jacobus Schellinger and his family soon merged into the
English community about them; in the course of the next genera-
tion nothing but the name remained to show an origin different
from that of the Mulfords and Hedges, the Strattons and Hands
surrounding them, and we find one of the grandsons of Cornelia
Melyn, bearing the singular name of Lion Loper, in honor of
Lion Gardiner, the great man of the settlement and proprietor
of Gardiner's Island, into whose family some of the descendants
of Cornelia Melyn appear to have married at an early date.
Jacobus Schellinger was one of the most well-to-do men of the
community, and is early assessed at the second highest figure
in the town. With him and his immediate family had come his
stepson, Jacobus or James Loper, then a young man just grown
up, who soon acquired the grant of a new parcel of land a short
distance east of his stepfather's home, on the north side of the
road to the Three-Mile Harbor. Both Loper and his stepfather
turned their attention at an early date to the whalefishing in-
dustry, then profitable at the eastern end of Long Island, and
they were engaged in it for a number of years. They employed
largely for their whaling crews the neighboring Montauk Indians,
who were expert in this craft; and there is an agreement still
extant by Schellinger and Loper with thirteen of the Indians,
bearing date July 4, 1675, in which the former agree to furnish
the necessary boats, and to cart the products of the fishery a
distance not exceeding two miles for the purpose of trying or
boiling; the Indians to receive one half of the profits. The
Schellingers indeed appear to have been somewhat prone to
dealings with the Indians, and a curious indenture of apprentice-
ship still exists, important as showing at what an early date
domestic relations were established between the Easthampton
settlers and the Montauk Indians. In this document a certain
"Muntauket Indian commonly named Papasequin" and his wife
agree with Jacobus Schellinger and his son Jacob to bind out
to the latter 14 our sonn named Quausuch, ould now above seaven
yeares;" the time of apprenticeship was to run from "primo
Aprill at ye yeare eightie eight," and was to extend to April 1,
APPENDIX II
355
1698, at which time, besides certain payments to the father, in
case of good behavior, etc., of the lad, the latter was to receive
the sum of ten pounds in money or goods.
The Schellingers at Easthampton were not altogether cut off
from their former life, for here Cornelia Schellinger's brother
Isaac occasionally brought in his vessel to the Harbor with
freight from New York. One of his receipts for freight for the
return voyage is still extant. It is dated "one board the barke,
25 May, 1680," and shows that he took with him "tobacco pips,"
from the fields of Easthampton, linen and woollen from its
domestic manufactures, whalebone and oil from the fisheries, and
the unsold remainder apparently of a mercantile shipment, from
William Darvall, a well-known merchant of New York, embrac-
ing ironware, "Sarge and Cersey," and gunpowder.
Jacobus Schellinger resided at Easthampton for more than a
quarter of a century, and there two of his children, Cornelis and
Jacob, were born. He died on the 17th of June, 1693, aged
sixty-seven years, but his wife Cornelia outlived him nearly
another quarter of a century, dying on Feb. 25, 1717, aged
eighty-eight years. Both are supposed to have been buried in
the old churchyard of Easthampton. It was a few years before
the death of his father that Jacobus Schellinger's son Abraham,
then a man of mature years, had his attention directed to the
fertile lands lying two or three miles east of the village of East-
hampton, at what was called by the Indians Amagansett. Here
he procured a large grant in 1690, and here he and his youngest
brother Jacob are supposed to have been the pioneers of the
village of Amagansett, the most easterly hamlet upon Long
Island; his name is believed to be still commemorated in
"Abram's Landing," a small haven upon Gardiner's Bay about
a mile east of Amagansett, and in "Abram's Path," a narrow
wood road in the same vicinity.
After the death of Jacobus Schellinger, the homestead at East-
hampton appears to have remained in the possession of his oldest
son Willem, but in the course of time to have passed to a branch
of the Gardiner family. As for Abraham Schellinger, the pioneer
of Amagansett, he seems to have died in the early part of the
year 1713 (x. s.). His will, which is to be found in the Surro-
gate's Office of New York, disposes of his land at "Amugonst"
to his oldest son William; while to his son Abraham he devises
356
APPENDIX II
a half-interest which he held in Plumb Island, between Long
Island and the Connecticut shore; and to another son, Isaac, he
gives an interest in three tracts of land in the county of West-
chester, New York. Besides these three sons, Abraham Schel-
linger also left a young son, Zachariah, and three daughters.
Like that of her mother, Jannetje Melyn, Cornelia Schellinger's
life was long and eventful; her memories must have embraced
Antwerp in its decaying splendor, and New Amsterdam with no
splendor at all, — merely a few thatched cottages around the fort.
She remembered Staten Island as an unbroken wilderness, and
her father's plantation there, twice destroyed by Indians, and the
days of panic and distress in the little house on the Graft in New
Amsterdam. Then came the long struggles of her father against
colonial maladministration and his self-imposed exile from New
Amsterdam, during many years of which the care of his family
had devolved largely upon herself. She had seen the village of
huts at New Amsterdam grow into a town of importance, and
had seen the English rule supplant that of the Dutch. Of her
father's two great enemies so well known to her, she could re-
member how the life of one had closed in horror in the wreck of
the "Princess" (when her own brother and her pastor also per-
ished) ; and how the other had ended his days in seclusion and
in bitter humiliation at his farmhouse up the Bouwery Lane
on Manhattan Island. In her latter years she found half a
century of quiet life filled with domestic duties, but besides her
son Abraham she was also fated to see her youngest son Jacob
grow up to adult manhood, and die before her in the year 1714.
He, as it appears, had married into the English family of Baker
at Easthampton, and left a family of eight children surviving
him. Through the various branches which have been enumer-
ated, the descendants of Cornelia Melyn are still to be found in
large numbers in the vicinity of Easthampton, as previously
stated, but it is not within the design of this note to pursue
the later genealogy.
INDEX
Abrahamsen, Jacob, 316.
Achter Col, destroyed by the Indians,
178.
Adriaensen, Maryn, at the " Shrove Tide
Dinner," 103;" purchases land on East
River, 280; early life, 291; association
with Jan Damen, 292; heads petition
of 1643 to attack the Indians, 203 ; his
assault on Director Kieft, 294; sent to
the Netherlands, 295.
Adriaensen, Willem, 280, 281, 285.
" Adventure," the, galley, 255 et seq.
Aertsen, Govert, 236, 240, 2u8.
Allaerdt view of New Amsterdam, 244,
note.
Allerton, Isaac, 42, 196; association with
Govert Loockermans, 237 ; his warehouse,
331; early life, 332; at the Plymouth
Colony, 333; at New Haven, 334; busi-
ness relations at New Amsterdam, 335;
establishes trading house, 335; " Aller-
ton's Building," 336 ; attack on his ware-
house by the Indians, 336. See Ap-
pendix II.
Allerton, Isaac, junior. 334, 337.
Amagansett, Long Island, descendants of
Cornells Melyn at. See Appendix II.
Ambrosius, Moses, 86, note.
Andriessen, Pieter, 164; establishment on
Long Island, 165; captured by Indians,
166 et seq., 170.
Ann Street, 311. See Van Tie-nhoven's
Lane, 339.
Anthony, Allard, 47. 54, 60, 89. 285.
Antwerp in the 17th century, 95 et seq.
Arnhem, projected village of, 219.
Atwater, Joshua, 231.
Augustinus, Jan, 285, note.
Bakek, John, Capt., affray with William
Faterson, 199 et stq. ; 203", note.
Baptist Church, first in New York, 318.
Barentsen, Simon, 126, note.
Bark Mill, the, 155, Appendix L
Barn of West India Co., 182.
Bartre, William, 270, note.
Bastions of the Palisades, 273, 274.
Baxter, George, 32, note; 179, 180, 237.
Baxter, Thomas, property confiscated, 19.
See 32, note ; captures a Dutch vessel, 42.
Bavnrd, Anna, 286.
Bayard, Balthazar, 244.
I Bayard, Nicholas, 174, 203, note, 246.
Beaver Path, the, 33, note.
Beaver Street. See Prinsen Straet.
Bedlo, Isaac, 49, 197, 198.
Beeckman, Willem, bouwery at Harlem,
72; 306, 328. See also Beekman.
Beekman, Jochem, 150.
Beekman'3 Orchard, 328. See Beeckman.
Beekman Street, 328.
Bellamont, Earl of, Governor of New York,
253, 254, 259.
Bergen, Jacob Hansen, 301, note.
Bescher, Thomas. See Betts.
Bestevaers Kreupelbosch. See " Swamp,
The."
Betts, Thomas, 76.
Bicklev, William, 124.
! " Black John," 11.
i Planck, Juriaen, 194.
j Blauveldt, Captain, of the privateer " La
Garce," 69 et seq.
Bleecker, Jan Jansen, 173, note.
Bleyck, Ariaentje, 49.
Blockhouse, the, 2, 151, 152.
Blommaert, Adriaen, Capt., 128.
Blommaerts Vly, 9, 66, 81, 104, 152.
Bogardus, Everardus, Dominie, his house
on Winckel Straet, 14 et seq.; marries
Annetje Janse, 16; his bouwery, 16;
attacks Director Kieft's Indian policy,
24; suit for slander by 01 off van Cort-
landt, 26; drowned in wreck of the
"Princess," 29, 59; comment on Kieft's
pamphlet of vindication, 106. See 158,
his partv at the City Tavern, 180. See
294, 299".
Bohemia, manor of, 281, 289, 290.
Boon, Francis, 193.
Bout, Jan Evertsen, 233.
Bradford, William, his house, 233, note.
Bradlev, Henrv, 249.
Bradley, Samuel, 249, 251.
Bradley, Sarah, marries William Cox, 249;
marries John Oort, 250; marries Capt.
Wm. Kidd, 251; marries Christopher
Rousby. her will, etc., 266.
Bradley," Thomas, Capt., 249.
Brazier, Henry, 326; house on the East
River, 343; ordered to quit New Amster-
dam, 344; troubles with Dirck Claessen,
345.
Bresar. See Brazier.
Brewery of the West India Co., 34, 178 ;
358
INDEX
of Jacob van Couwenhoven, 147, et seq.,
161; of Jan Damen, 2U8: of Jan Vinje,
300.
Bridge, at Broad Street, 5, 88, 94, 152.
Bridge Lane. See Brugh Steegh.
Bridge Street. See Hrugh Straet.
Bridges, Charles, 185, l'J4 et seq., 218.
Broad Street. See Blommaerts Vly, The
Ditch, and Heere Graft.
Broad Street, gate at, 274.
Broen, Tomas, 270, note.
Bronck, Jonas, 108, 104, 193.
Brouwer, Adam, 24.
Brouwer Straet, 0, 7, note, 69.
Brown, William, 09.
Bruce, John and Lysbet, 318, note.
Brugh Steegh, 33; "closed, 34.
Brugh Straet, 0.
Brutell, Peter and Margaretha, 318, note.
Bruynsen, Hage, 321.
Buccaneers, the, 210.
Burger, Engeltje. See Mans, Engeltje.
Burger, Hermanns, 234.
Burger, Johannes, 234.
Burger's Mill, Sluice, and Kill, 232.
Burger's Path, 222, 224, 243. See Appen-
dix I.
Bushwick Creek and Bushwick, 323.
Cabins, early, at New Amsterdam, 2.
Calder, Jochem, 163.
Canapaukah Creek, 168, 228, 231.
Capske, The. See Schreyers Hoek.
Carpenel, Jan Jacobsen, 164.
Carstensen, Claes, 161, 162; Indian inter-
preter. 162. note.
Catiemuts Hoek, 4, 330.
Cattle Pens, the, 275.
Cedar, the privateer, 214.
Central Park, New York, 72.
Chatham Square. 331.
Cherrv Garden, the, 338.
Cherry Street, 339.
Church, Dutch, of 1026 in Barkmill, 155 et
seq.: of 1633, 16; description of, 58; its
parsonage and stable, 59; becomes a pri-
vate house, 60; 147, Appendix I.: of
1642 (in fort), 17, 58, note, 59, 109, 148.
Church Lane, 57, 58, 59.
City Tavern. See Stadts Herbergh.
Claaver Weytje, 275, 285, note, 295, 298.
Claessen, Dirck, the potter, 345.
Claessen, Sibout, 125, 126.
Cleer, George, 341, 342.
Cliff Street, 311, 317.
Clock, Abraham Martensen, 222.
Clopper, Cornelis, 279, 302.
Coenties Alley. See Stadt Huvs Lane.
Coersen, Arent, 284.
Coersen, Barent, 170.
Cohn, or " Cawyn," Jacob. 86. note.
Colve, Governor, 204 ; demolition of build-
ings by. 274.
Common Pasture, the Second. 4; the First,
62. See also Schaapen Weide, 152. See
271, note, 311, 330, 338.
Companv's VI v, the, 81.
Coorn, Nicholas, 180, 238.
Cornclissen, Albei t, 301.
Cornelissen, Dirck, 225, 239, 240, 242, 245,
270, note, 341.
Cornelissen, Lourens, skipper, 298, 299, 303.
Cornelissen, Pieter (Timinerman),35 et seq.,
garden of, on Brouwer Straet, 35; his
mill on Wessell's Creek, 30.
Cornell, Rebecca, 190.
Cornell, Sarah, marries Thomas Willet,
193 ; marries Charles Bridges, 194. See
195.
Cornell, Thomas, 193.
Corstiaensen, Hendrick, 151.
Cousseau, Jacques, 158, note.
Cox, Alice, "alias Bono," 249.
Cox, Sarah. See Bradley, Sarah.
Cox, William, 249, 250, 251.
Craie, Teunis, 82 et seq.; his houses on the
Ditch, 84; sells house to the Jews, 80;
his Long Island grant, 89; small house
on Broad Street, 90.
Cregier, Martin, Captain, 243.
Croesens, Claas, 270, note.
Custom House, first, of New York, 53,
Cuville, or Cuvilje, Adriana, 300; marries
Jan Damen, 307 ; her children, 307.
Dacosta, Joseph, 86, note, 147.
Damen, Jan Jansen, leases land of the
West India Co., 9; wounds Philip Ge-
raerdy, 11; trespasses of his cattle, 02.
See 81. Shrovetide dinner at his house,
102 ; visits the Netherlands and pur-
chases the "Great Bouwerv" for Stuv-
vesant, 119, note; 148, 152, 240; the
outhoek of his farm, 208, note, 271, 274,
275, 285 ; association with Marvn Adri-
aensen, 292, 295, 297; his brewery, 298;
marriage to Adriana Cuville, 307. See
322, 324, 328.
Danckers, Justus, view of New Amster-
dam, 49, note. Appendix I., 129, 155.
D'Andradi, Salvador. 86.
Danielse, "Mother," Anneken, 270, note.
Danker and Sluvter, the missionaries, 321;
Journal of, 306.
Danker and Sluvter, view of New Amster-
dam, 55, 186, "189, 243, note, 335.
Davidson, Joris, 124. note.
Decker, Johan de, 42.
De Foreest, Hendrick, 71.
De Foreest, Isaac, buys old church, 59; his
house, 71 et seq. ; a pioneer of Harlem,
72; his brewerv, 73, 148.
De Groot, Willem Pietersen, 345.
De Koningh, Frederic, Capt., 179.
De La Nov, Abraham, 178.
Delavall, Thomas, 12, note.
De Lucin:i, Abraham, 86, note.
De Meyer, Nicholas, 148, 170, 308.
De Mever, William, 171.
De Silfe, Nicasius, 151, 169.
De Truv, Philip, 301, note; his house on
East River shore, 326, 335, 339.
INDEX
359
Deutel Bay, 83, note, 327.
De Vos, Mathew, marries widow of Philip
Geraerdv, 12; his land on Hoogh Straet,
127.
De Vries, David, Captain, his account of
the massacre of the Indians at Pavonia,
23 ; his grant on Staten Island, 97.
Dickenson, Joanna, 125.
Dillon, Daniel, attempts to burn Wm. Pat-
erson's house in New York, 202.
Dircksen, Barent. 313, 314, note.
Dircksen, Cornelis, ferrvmau, 48, 66, 242,
244, 245, 340.
Dirt_v Lane. See Slyck Steegh, 154.
" Distelvink, Den," — poems of Jacob
Steendam, 132 et seq.
Ditch, the, 82, 83, 105, 123.
Ditch of the Palisades, 274.
Dock, the public, 73.
Doeckles, Willem, 89.
Dominicus, Reynier, 308.
Dominie's Bouwery, the, 16.
Dominie's Hoek, 16.
Dongan, Governor. 245.
Doughty, Francis, Rev., 219.
Drisius, Dominie Samuel, his house, 49;
land in the Sheep Pasture, 151.
Duke's Street. See Hoogh Straet.
Dutch Kills, the, 228.
Du Trieux. See De Truy.
Duyckink, Evert, the glassmaker, 158, 221.
Duvtts, Laurens, 164.
Dykman, Jan, 163.
Dyre, William, 55.
Eastfiampton, Long Island, descendants
of Cornelis Melyn at. See Appendix
Ebel, Pieter, 181.
Ellet's, or Elliott's Alley, 173.
Elliott, Richard, 160, note, 173.
Ellsworth, Stoffel, 65.
Emott, James, 259.
Enekhuysen, city of, in the 17th centurv,
131.
"English Quarter," the, 192.
Evertsen, Wessell, the fisher, 171 et seq.,
199.
Exchange Place. See Tuyn Straet.
Fair Street. See Fulton Street.
Felle, Simon, 150.
Ferry to Long Island, 6, 49 ; leased by
Captain Tomassen, 66; hamlet at, 319,
339; establishment of, 340; Eghbert van
Borsum, ferry-master, 342.
Fiscal, House o'f the, 33.
'•Five Houses," the. 5, 13, 31; confiscated
by the English and demolished, 32 ; at-
tachment on, by George Baxter, 32, note.
Fletcher, Benjamin, Colonel, Governor of
New York, '253. 255.
Flodder, Jacob. 272, 304, note.
Forbus, Jan, 162.
Forrester, Andrew, 93, note, 179.
Fort Amsterdam, 5, 7, 182.
"Fortune of New Netherland," ship con-
fiscated bv Stuvvesant's orders, 119, 178.
Francen, Bout, 314, 315.
Frera, David, 86, note.
Fulton Street, 317, 324.
Fyn, Francis, Capt., 167.
Gabry, Pieter and Sons, of Amsterdam,
53, 54, 284.
Galma. See Jansen, Sybrant.
Garden Street. See Tuvn Straet.
Garland, John, 197, 198."
Geraerdv, Jan, 12.
Geraerdv, Philip, keeps the "White Horse
Tavern, 7; accidentally wounded, 11;
his later residence, 12, 63.
Gerritsen, Adriaen, 178.
Gerritsen, Philip, 178, 180.
" Gideon." slave-ship. 42.
Glazier Street, the, 233, note.
Glen, Alexander. See Leendertsen, Sander.
Golden Hill, 310.
Gold Street, 271, note, 310.
Goulder. William, 341, 342.
Gouwenbergh, the, 297, 298, 310.
Graham, James, Recorder, is mysteriously
wounded, 318.
'• Great Bouwery,'' the, purchased by Di-
rector Stuyvesant, 119, note.
Great Tavern, the. See Stadts Herbergh.
Great Tree, the, 325, 339.
Green Lane, the, 297, note.
Haes. Roeloff Jansen, 47.
Haie, Jacob, 57, 162; burning of his farm-
house, 169. See 323.
Hall, Thomas, his house at " The Ferry,'
325 et seq.; one of the first English set-
tlers, 327', marries Anna Mitford, 327;
prominent hi New Amsterdam, 328, 337.
Hanover Square, its associations, 223. See
243, note, 244, Appendix I.
Hardenbrook, Andries and Femmetje, 318,
note.
Harlem, early settlements at, 72, 108.
Harpendinck. John, 316.
Hartgers, Pieter, 80.
Hartgers view of New Amsterdam, 2, note;
155, note.
Heathcote, George, 291.
Heere Graft, 82, 123, 149.
Heermans or Herrman, Augustyn, 50,
note; warehouse of, 53; financial diffi-
culties, 54; residence on East River, 281 ;
his early life in Prague, 281 et seq.\
enters Wallenstein's service, 283, 285;
difficulties with Director Stuyvesant,
287; deputized to visit the governor of
Maryland, his journey, 288; his artistic
talents, 288, note; his survey and map
of Maryland, 289; manor of Bohemia,
290 ; supposed artist of the " Yander-
donck view of New Amsterdam," Ap-
pendix I.
360
INDEX
Hellekers, Jacob, 306, .321.
Hendrickse, Trvntje, 300.
Hendricksen, Claes, 208, 269, 276, 277.
Hendricksen, Harmeu, 1G8.
Herrman, Augustine. See Heermans.
Hewit, Kandel. 220.
Hollar, Wenceslas, 288, note.
Holmes, George, 14, 326, 327.
Hooghlandt, Christopher, 198.
Hoogh Straet, or High Street, its origin, 6,
104; straightened,' 123, 153, 176.
Hoorn's Hoek, 126, note.
Indians, massacre of Weckquaskeek
tribe, 1643, 22; compensation to Mo-
hawks for destruction of their house, 71;
expedition against Earitans, 97; massa-
cre of Weekquaskeeks, 103; devastate
Staten Island in 1043, 104; their incur-
sions of 1655, 165; destroy Achter Col,
178; attack Allerton's warehouse, 336.
Isolated plantations